<tassJ3^..Z4£3 

Copyright N° 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



In What Life Consists 



AND OTHER SERMONS 



By 

Rev. George H. Gould, d. d. 



BOSTON 

Ube pilgrim press 

CHICAGO 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Receivec 

JUN 13 f903 

\ Copyright Entry 
CLASS & XXc. No 
COPY B, 



Copyright 1903 
By Nellie Gould-Smith 




Press of J. J. Arakelyan 
295 Congress St., 
Boston 



CONTENTS 



In What Life Consists 5 

Giving and Receiving 23 

Enjoying Life 41 

Stirring up the Inward Gift 59 

God's Part and Our Part in Redemption . . .. . .77 

The Alabaster Box 97 

Working in the Sunday-school 117 

Entering into Rest 139 

The Word of Life 153 

Running with Patience 171 

The Trial of Your Faith 189 

A Living Hope 205 

Christian Conversion . . . 225 

Pitching One's Tent Toward Sodom 241 

The Solving of Doubts 259 

The Bible : Its Place and Power in Church and State . . 279 

How to Begin to be a Christian 303 

Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Plymouth Church, Worces- 
ter, May, 1894 321 

The Stone Rolled Away 333 

What Shall I do with Christ? 349 

Tributes to Doctor Gould 367 



INTRODUCTION 



This volume of sermons is published that in a way they may be- 
come a memorial of Dr. Gould. 

It has been thought that extracts from letters of friends and 
various expressions, more or less public, could best reveal the po- 
sition of Dr. Gould as a preacher and as a friend. Many will rec- 
ognize these sermons and will recall the tone of voice and the ges- 
tures as he delivered them. Without them much will be wanting 
that gave added power to the matter in hand. His style of ex- 
pression had greatly changed during the last years, and many ser- 
mons we know he would have desired revised before publication. 

We remember that in his earlier ministry he was somewhat crit- 
icized by his brethren for giving so much attention to the rhetoric 
of his sermons; but it was a "fault" for which he was not re- 
sponsible. He had an ear for music — the "music of words." He 
aimed at repression in composition; hence he acquired a habit of 
always using the exact word needed. His gestures too were in keep- 
ing with the theme. He sometimes painted a scene so vividly with 
words and gestures, that it required little imagination to see the real- 
ity. Some will recall a vivid picture of Mt. Blanc in one of his 
sermons. 

Soon after his birth the family moved to New Braintree. Here 
they sat under the preaching of Dr. Fiske. It was a daughter of 
Dr. Fiske, who, recognizing in Mr. Gould, as a lad, unusual intellec- 
tual ability, made it possible for him to turn his face toward college. 
Preparatory to college he entered Monson Academy in his fourteenth 
year. Previous to this he had been apprenticed to an uncle at Oak- 
ham in a carriage and harness manufactory. Later it was a source 
of pride to him that he knew a good harness when he saw it and 
could make a No. I whip-lash. 

Mr. Gould left home with the traditionary bundle swung over 
his shoulders, walking the whole distance from home to Monson 
except for a chance "lift" now and then. Those were the days when 
churches took the initiative in the education of young men, when 



4 



INTRODUCTION 



mothers and sisters and sewing societies combined to contribute all 
in their power to their respectable appearance. How many students 
from the back country towns did penance throughout the college 
course in coats and trousers that, in the consciousness of the wearer, 
made feet and hands painfully conspicuous ! These "best clothes" 
were held sacred, and lasted till the man had outgrown the boy as 
well as the clothes. 

In some respects Dr. Gould's life was to him a disappointment. 
Conscious of intellectual powers which had been restrained and im- 
prisoned by inadequate health, he one day, not many months before 
his death, expressed dissatisfaction and regret. "For one of my in- 
tellectual furnishings I should at least have written a book There 
is so little to show for it all." But this looking at himself as the 
world measures people, was but for a moment. His lament was 
needless, for on thousands of human hearts were recorded life-giving 
words of the gospel he so faithfully preached. 

There was no "caste" under his preaching. Rich and poor met 
together to praise and to pray. The prayer-meetings, the pulse of 
the church, were pervaded with a spirit of love that harmonized all 
hearts. Much as might be said of Dr. Gould intellectually, his heart 
was greater than his brain. 

He had a keen sense of humor which often did him good service. 
Many a salient truth was sent home, pointed with some bright joke. 
This keen sense of humor made him the genial companion and the 
welcome guest, and during his last years he was much sought for as 
a happy after-dinner speaker. 

In closing this sketch we desire to do honor to the memory of his 
early instructor at Monson Academy, Dr. Hammond, to whom Dr. 
Gould often referred as the inspirer of all the ambitions of his life; 
and who was seemingly the embodiment of all goodness and noble- 
ness. Such examples lift the calling of a teacher to a level with the 
highest. No doubt Dr. Hammond was greatly inspired by the "Life 
of Thomas Arnold," a book he greatly admired, and was at length 
enabled to abandon his plan of entering the ministry for the position 
of instructor, realizing his '"Rugby" at Monson. In considering such 
a character as the instructor of youth we feel that "learning and 
scholarship are important elements in civilized life, but manhood 
and womanhood are vastly more important." 

E. M. G. S. 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



'Tor a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things 
which he possesseth." — Luke 12: 15. 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



In common language the word "life" is used with vary- 
ing significations. In its primary or lowest use, it signi- 
fies mere animal existence — the simple principle of vitality 
which man shares in common with the brute creation. 
This is the life of the "five senses" — the life which heaves 
in the breath, throbs in the heart, flows in the blood and 
manifests itself through the several organs of the body, 
deriving its nutriment chiefly through appetite, eating, 
drinking, sleeping and mere sensational delights being the 
highest forms of happiness it can know. This is the type 
of existence just above the vegetable, the baldest and 
most literal definition of the principle of sentient being 
with which God has endowed his animal creation. This 
is what the scientist and the physiologist mean when they 
talk about "life." 

But both in common language and in the Scriptures, 
it is now to be said, this word "life" is far oftener used 
in a figurative than in a literal sense, namely, to denote 
the sum or essence of that which makes life chiefly de- 
sirable and attractive. It is thus a synonym for the word 
"happiness," and these two words "life" and "happiness," 



8 IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



in fact, can be used interchangeably in very many passages 
of Scripture. Thus the Psalmist says, "Thou wilt show 
me the path of life," or happiness. "With thee is the 
fountain of life." So Solomon says of heavenly wisdom, 
"It shall be life unto thy soul," "whoso findeth me find- 
eth life," or happiness, and universally throughout the 
New Testament, the sum of all present and future felicity 
is expressed by the phrase "eternal life," and the sum of 
all future misery by the phrase "eternal death." Thus to 
men's minds generally, both in its religious and secular 
use, the word conveys the general idea I have stated — 
namely, the highest pleasure or happiness or satisfaction 
to be derived from the divine gift of existence. 

But now, while thus far there probably would be no 
dissent from the general definition I have given, at this 
point we shall find that, practically, a wide divergence of 
view obtains among men as to what "life," or happiness, 
really is. These divergent views we may perhaps limit 
to four. 

First, there is a large class of persons in our day, as in 
past times, who evidently consider "life," or the sum of 
enjoyment in this world, to consist mainly in the free< and 
unrestrained gratification of their sense nature, the life of 
appetite, passion, conviviality and self-indulgence, the life 
of Epicureanism, whose cardinal maxim, according to 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 9 



Paul, is, "Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die." 
This is emphatically the life which the Scriptures denom- 
inate the life of the "flesh," whose first aim is to forget 
both the past and the future in a hilarious enjoyment of 
the present. Its favorite motto is, "Throw care to the 
winds." On this plane of living conscience! is ever an in- 
truder. The voice of duty is only harsh and discordant 
in the halls of sensual revelry or in the clubrooms of bac- 
chanalian festivity. Every uprising instinct of accounta- 
bility, of religious foreboding, must here be bound over 
to keep the peace. No troublesome themes of heaven and 
hell and judgment to come must be allowed to invade 
these giddy precincts. The devotees of this type of life can 
live only in the whirls of unreflecting gaiety. Pleasure is 
the goddess at whose shrine every offering is brought. 
Alas, my friends, there are thousands upon thousands of 
young men and young women to-day, in whose minds and 
imaginations life, God-given life, means just this and noth- 
ing more ! 

But, next, there is what we may call the life of delib- 
erate or methodized self-seeking, or personal ambition. 
Cool, calculating is this form of life, as distinguished from 
the sensual or Epicurean. It is given to no fevers of ex- 
citement ; indeed, it often resolutely stifles passion and ap- 
petite and love of pleasure for the sake of remoter, yet 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



purely selfish good in the future. This life manifests itself 
under the various forms of avarice, pride, fashion, display, 
love of power. It is more reflective than the former, inas- 
much as it carefully adapts means to ends, gathers wisdom 
from past experience and, in a degree, forecasts the future. 
But the future to which it looks is ever bounded by the 
horizon of time. All its maxims are worldly — the heaping 
up of riches, the attainment of earthly rank, the glory and 
the fame which come from men and not from God. 

A third type of life I may designate as the life of the 
ideal faculties, or the intellectual tastes and aspirations ; in 
other words "intellectual life." This life possesses a degree 
of dignity, it must be confessed, even when disconnected 
from any higher life, which belongs to neither of the others, 
and which cannot fail, to some extent, to- command our in- 
voluntary admiration. This is the life developed through 
philosophy, poetry ; through all the products of the imagi- 
nation. It is the life of art, of taste, of esthetic emotion, of 
intellectual dominion. There is in it that which kindles ir- 
resistibly the emulation of all finely organized minds. It 
appeals powerfully to our sentiment of hero-worship. Its 
proudest illustrations in the past have been the Platos, the 
Aristotles, the Zenos, the Bacons of the world. It was 
manifested in Athenian culture and Spartan jurisprudence. 
It has been developed in the classics of every age : Homer, 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



Virgil, Tennyson, Bryant. It has breathed in painting, 
towered in architecture, glistened in marble. It enchants 
the world through music, through the periods of oratory 
and the pages of fiction; in short, the life of which I now 
speak is the development of the intellect, imagination and 
ideal faculties of a man up to the highest point to which 
they can go without the aid of the moral and religious na- 
ture. 

The fourth and last type, then, which remains to be men- 
tioned is the Scriptural or the divine type, supernaturally 
begotten in the soul of men by the Spirit of God; that inner 
experience, that exalted type of being of which Christ dis- 
coursed in my text to-day and through his Gospels; dis- 
tinguished from all the others, not by excluding the right 
elements of any of them, but by subjugating all the powers 
and attributes of our undying manhood to the reign of the 
moral faculty and the religious aspirations of the soul. 
This divine life differs widest from all the others by carry- 
ing in itself the germ of immortality, by deriving its sus- 
tenance continually from supermundane sources and by 
apprehending with some degree of clearness the realities, 
values and motive powers of an eternal hereafter. This 
Scriptural or Christian form of life, let me say at the outset, 
seeks no violent separation of itself from any of the legiti- 
mate elements of happiness contained in the lower forms. 



12 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



All the right functions of the body, all the pleasures of a 
healthy animal vitality, all the pure delights of social fel- 
lowship, all the normal joys of intellect and of esthetic 
culture when obedient and instrumental to higher Chris- 
tain aims, have no war with the divine life of God in the 
soul. As a majestic forest-tree, though bathing its head in 
the clouds and drinking in through all its Briarean arms 
the dew and sunshine of heaven; though wrestling with 
storms and playing with zephyrs and courting the music of 
birds, yet scorns not the earth whence it sprung but pene- 
trates it still with a thousand roots, so the Christian, re- 
newed by the Spirit of God and aspiring to heavenly com- 
panionships, does not forget that in becoming a Christian 
he has not ceased to be a man, but while in time and in the 
flesh has human relations to bear and human duties to per- 
form. 

But now proceeding to a more positive unfolding and 
characterization of this higher and Christian type of life 
in the soul of man, I am led to remark, in the first place, 
that its most distinctive and marvelous feature, as I re- 
gard it, a feature which differentiates it as widely as the 
poles are asunder from all other forms of human life, is 
this : — its power of self -expansion, or indefinite enlargement 
of the volume of its being. Christ said of his followers, 
"I am come that they might have life, and that they might 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 13 



have it more abundantly." Our animal and sense life is 
narrow and constricted. All its forces are centripetal. All 
its functions play inward and not outward, concentrating 
the supreme energies of the never-dying spirit upon puny, 
paltry and finite self. But when God's supernatural grace 
takes possession of a human heart at conversion, as I under- 
stand, it reverses all these native tendencies. The move- 
ment of the life thenceforward becomes centrifugal and no 
longer centripetal. An absolutely new form of existence 
is originated in the human breast by the regenerating 
Spirit of God, a life of unselfish and benevolent sympathy 
with the whole moral dominions of God. This I take to 
be the first sign and seal of that experience which the 
Scriptures call the new birth. Thus, while an unrenewed 
human heart, by the law of its wretched nature, if we leave 
out of view the instinctive affections, works ever toward 
solitariness, isolation and selfishness, the renewed soul 
works toward sympathetic and ever-widening fellowship 
with the whole sentient empire of the Creator. And is 
not this, my friends, manifestly that more abundant life of 
which our Saviour spoke? Love, divine and unselfish love, 
becomes from the hour of true conversion the mystic, al- 
most magic bond, that multiplies existence a thousandfold 
and links the soul in fraternal intercourse with all the off- 
spring of an almighty Parent. Thus every Christian life, 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



every truly Christian life, voluntarily intertwines itself with 
every other human life. It roots its own existence in the 
common soil of humanity. It counts the race its brothers, 
blood-bought together by the same infinite, dying Redeem- 
er. It therefore weeps with those that weep and rejoices 
with those that rejoice. It sends the waves of its regener- 
ated affection to the remotest heathen shore, and as joy 
fills heaven when sinners repent, so do Christian hearts 
below, truly alive to Christ, pulsate to new tides of holy 
rapture when Satan-thralled souls, in any clime, are 
redeemed unto God. How was this heart-expanding 
and humanity-embracing power of religion illustrated 
in Paul, in Whitefield and Henry Martyn, Adoniram 
Judson and all in our world whose souls have been in- 
flamed at the altar of heavenly benevolence ! And, my breth- 
ren, only will your life and mine rise from sensual littleness 
to the true grandeur of existence, when we catch the spirit 
of such men, and, baptized with the same baptism from 
above, we, too, become willing, nay, joyful, to lose self in a 
sacrificial and Christly sympathy with every brother man 
beneath the over-arching sky. Taught by the Scriptures, 
I hold this to be the first mark and the last of every Spirit- 
born human heart. "I am come," said Christ, "that they 
might have life, and that they might have it more abun- 
dantly." 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



But this Christ-given and Spirit-born life in the human 
soul differs again from all others, not only by this wonder- 
ful enlargement of its earthly sympathies, but by institut- 
ing forthwith an unseen yet real communion between self 
and all holy and supernal intelligences. "Our conversa- 
tion," said Paul, "is in heaven ;" not will be but is. Already, 
if God's true children, we are citizens and participants in 
the upper felicity of that world of light. It was a favorite 
idea with, the old philosophers that every man had a dual 
nature; that two opposite principles or divinities ruled his 
soul, the one earthly and the other divine; and that these 
two principles or demons were continually struggling for 
the mastery. But this glimmering heathen thought is a 
profound and central revelation, as it seems to me, of the 
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Without God's im- 
planted grace, man is earthy, earth-looking, earth-ab- 
sorbed and earth-tending forever. God, indeed, has made 
him with heavenly capacities, but unquickened from above ; 
these all remain latent and powerless, while the earthly de- 
mon reigns rampant and supreme through all the vitalities 
of the soul. Every man by nature, we might almost say, 
Janus-like, is born with two faces, double senses, looking 
simultaneously earthward and heavenward. But while the 
earthly senses are all breathing and acute, the upward face 
is paralytic, blind and insensate until touched by the mi- 



]6 IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 

raculous power of the soul's Redeemer. By nature every 
man's whole upward hemisphere of moral consciousness is 
filled only with midnight darkness. 

Winding about under the city of Rome just beneath the 
feet of living men, are far-extending, subterranean caverns 
or excavations, called catacombs. In times of ancient im- 
perial persecution, men and women fled to these dismal 
abodes for refuge. Here they lived, ate, drank, slept. 
Here chapels were formed and decorated in which they 
worshiped God. Here they interred their dead. Here 
children were born, engaged in childish sports, grew al- 
most to manhood and womanhood with no knowledge of 
the sweet heavens that hung like a curtain of beauty over 
the world above them. But when at length an interval 
of peace came, when the imperial monster was hurled from 
his bloody throne by revolution or an assassin's dagger, 
these poor, hunted ones came up from their living graves. 
As they trod again the green-carpeted earth; as every 
opening sense bathed itself in the unaccustomed air ; as the 
perfume of flowers filled their nostrils, as they walked 
through templed forests while brooks murmured and 
bright-plumed birds filled the groves with echoing music; 
and at nightfall when the gorgeous clouds faded and the 
bright stars and the silver moon rode forth to lift the spirit 
upward and to fill that balmy Italian air with all unearthly 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 17 

glory, contrasted with the subterranean world they had left, 
how must every nerve and sense and pore of these liberated 
ones have been filled with the ecstasy of a new life ! But, 
my friends, human beings, dungeoned for a lifetime in sun- 
less catacombs, are not so shut out from all true existence 
as they who, wearing God's image, walk ever insphered in 
the "life of the flesh," with no upward-piercing vision, hear- 
ing no voices from the skies, upon whose minds the light 
of divine things has never flashed, who walk beneath the 
very vault of heaven, blind and deaf and dead to celestial 
wonders as the very brutes at their side. 

I will add but one more characteristic of the higher life 
of God in the soul of man. It is immortal. It is deathless. 
"Because I live, ye shall live also." "I am the resurrec- 
tion, and the life," said Christ to Martha. The life of our 
nostrils will soon exhale. The life of sense, of earthly at- 
tachment, the life which incarnates itself in covetousness, 
pride, ambition, in the most dazzling dreams of earthly 
power, in mere intellectual ascendency, are all bounded by 
the horizon of time and never carry their treasures through 
the portals of the grave. 

Alexander the Great, so-called, world-conqueror, and 
weeping that his dominions could extend no farther, when 
at last, heart-sick, he lay upon his dying couch, tradition 
tells us, gave this final command to his friends : that when 



i8 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



at length they should wrap him in his winding-sheet and 
carry him forth to his gorgeous burial, they should leave 
his hands visible, that all the world might see that Alex- 
ander's hands were empty at the last ! But, my friends, he 
who has God's life within, becomes kingly and crowned 
only when the grave has shut down on all his mortal tri- 
umphs. Then only can the undying human spirit rise to 
the full fruition and grandeur of that experience which the 
Scriptures call "life." "For a man's life," said our Sav- 
iour, "consisteth not in the abundance of the things which 
he possesseth." 

And tell me, is not this to-day the one unchallenged tes- 
timony of history? Was a man ever yet satisfied with what 
he had accumulated? What was Solomon's verdict, whose 
wealth was so unparalleled that Sheba's queen fainted 
when she looked upon the splendor of his treasures and the 
magnificence of his retinue? But over it all the royal 
preacher simply wrote, "Vanity of vanities ; all is vanity." 

Was human heart ever satisfied with worldly pleasure? 
The whole recorded past, to-day, on this point is but one 
long wail of disappointment. Was a soul's deathless hun- 
ger ever fed with the plaudits of earthly fame? I might 
now turn this room into a court of testimony and summon 
witnesses before you till the sun should set. Brilliant 
Thomas Campbell, author of "The Pleasures of Hope," 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



19 



but who, alas, was a stranger to the only hope which enters 
into 1 that within the veil, in his old age wrote, "I am alone 
in the world, my hopes are dead; and as for fame, it is a 
bubble that soon must burst." William Pitt, foremost of 
England's statesmen, most consummate orator of his time, 
in the meridian of his powers, loaded with public honors, 
Wifberforce tells us, "died of a broken heart." Sheridan, 
the gifted, who at one point of his career stood on a pin- 
nacle of unmatched popular glory, in his last days, drink- 
cursed, poverty-stricken, friend-forsaken, penned these sad 
words : "I am absolutely undone, and broken-hearted." 
Hear poor Scott of Scotland, fame-idolized child, in his old 
age driven forth from Abbotsford, sing his closing dirge of 
life : "I think my heart will break. Some new object of 
complaint comes every moment. Sicknesses thicker and 
thicker, friends fewer and fewer." 

But why do I attempt thus feebly to reinforce my Sav- 
iour's words to-day. "A man's life," said he, "consisteth 
not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." 
No, my friends, "things" never yet made life, since the 
world stood. "Things" never yet made happiness, though 
you should pile them up around a man, high as the crags 
to which the eagles soar. Indeed, if he has no life within 
him, God-begotten and heaven-tending, "things" about him 
will only crush and smother all true life out of him, as 
Midas was starved by superabundant gold. 



20 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



When Cornelius Vanderbilt lay upon his dying bed, he 
asked his attendants, we are told, to sing for him. They 
sang the familiar revival hymn, "Come, ye sinners poor and 
needy." Said the dying man, "Please sing that again for 
me. / am poor and needy!" Yes, he, acknowledged money- 
king of New York, whose property was reckoned at a hun- 
dred and twenty millions, in that hour confessed himself 
"poor and needy." And I say to you, that any man, who- 
ever he be, though his treasures should "outshine the 
wealth of Ormus and of Ind," is without God as miserable 
a pauper to-day as yonder sun looks down upon. 

"What shall it profit a man," asked Christ, "if he shall 
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" And when 
a man has lost himself, what is left? But a true heart, love- 
illumined and Christ-expanded, can carry the universe 
within it, as a drop of water can mirror all the stars. 

But all the down-flashing glory of God's heavens can- 
not change a clod into a man, meanness into nobleness, 
selfishness into happiness. God's true kingdom is within 
us. "Thrust a good man into hell," says one, "and he 
would evolve a heaven out of himself." Put a wicked man 
into paradise and you have put him into the hottest tor- 
ment of which he is capable. But this present joy, this 
inner life of God's people, exalted as it is, is only a fore- 
taste of what is to come. Yes, there is a life beyond life, 



IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



21 



my brethren, to be consummated only when death is swal- 
lowed up in victory. 

"Is that a death-bed where a Christian lies? 
Yes, but not his — 't is Death himself there dies." 

And indeed, not until God's child dies, as men call it, does 
he really begin to live. As those gates resplendent have 
swung open from time to time, to welcome some ascending 
saint, how have we, through our tears, it may be, caught 
a glimpse of that life beyond ! "Glory ! glory ! glory !" said 
Janeway with his last breath. "I am going to bathe in an 
ocean of purity, benevolence and happiness to all eternity," 
said departing Payson. "To all eternity !" What does that 
mean? My friends, 

"When I 've been there ten thousand years, 
Bright shining as the sun, 
I 've no less days to sing God's praise 
Than when I first begun!" 

"Thou wilt show me the path of life," said the psalmist 
king : "in thy presence is fulness of joy ; at thy right hand 
there are pleasures for evermore." On that mount of vi- 
sion David died. 

"And he showed me a pure river of water of life," says 
the Revelator of Patmos, "clear as crystal, proceeding out 
of the throne of God and of the Lamb," and that river 
from beneath yonder throne, believe it, brethren, shall 



22 IN WHAT LIFE CONSISTS 



never waste its volume, emblematic of that eternal joy- 
wherewith God shall lave the souls of his redeemed. And 
will we not all aspire to-day to that life which is beyond 
life and which only He can give who by his own death has 
abolished death and brought life and immortality to light 
through the gospel. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek 
those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the 
right hand of God." 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 



"Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more 
blessed to give than to receive." — Acts 20 : 35. 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 



This is a closing injunction of Paul, you will remember, 
to the Ephesian elders in that notable interview at Miletus. 
When and where Christ uttered the words now quoted 
does not appear in the sacred history. This, then, not un- 
likely, was one of those sayings of the Master, unreported 
by the four evangelists, to which John refers at the close of 
his Gospel. "And there are also many other things which 
Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I 
suppose that even the world itself could not contain the 
books that should be written." We may assume, then, that 
this was one of those revered traditional utterances of our 
Lord for a long time current on the lips of his disciples. 
But were it impossible to trace this language to> any spe- 
cific declaration of Christ, obviously it was the one great 
transactional doctrine and teaching of his incarnate life. 
"It is more blessed to give than to receive." 

There is a true and universally recognized blessedness or 
happiness in receiving. We are so made that we experi- 
ence happiness as recipient beings. We are furnished with 
appetites which demand constant supply. When hungry 
we crave food, when thirsty we crave drink, and there is a 



26 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 



lawful and perfectly innocent pleasure attached by the Cre- 
ator himself to every such normal self-gratification. There 
is also a legitimate and functional pleasure connected with 
the right use of all our bodily organs and senses. The eye 
rejoices in light and in receiving upon its preadapted retina 
the pictured impression of the outer world. The ear is de- 
lighted by unrolling waves of musical sound. The palate is 
gratified by gustatory flavors and the nostrils by wafted per- 
fumes of flowers. Thus our entire physical being is strung 
with organic sensibilities through which w T e receive con- 
stantly a certain kind and amount of happiness or blessed- 
ness. 

And so as we ascend the scale from the material to the 
immaterial we find the same thing holding true. Our in- 
tellect derives a joy from the contemplation of truth ; our 
imagination in feasting upon forms of ideal beauty. Our 
emotions and sensibilities, when in a healthy condition, are 
all inlets of a kind of passive ecstasy, as the chords of a 
well-strung instrument thrill melodiously under the fingers 
of a master. So, in still higher degree, our affectional and 
moral nature is made happy by receiving love, kindness, 
sympathy, charity and generosity from others. Thus, in 
a word, through the whole range of our sentient and 
spiritual being we are capable of happiness or blessedness 
through receiving. 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 27 

But now Christ affirms a happiness beyond this, the hap- 
piness of giving. Let us, then, proceed to inquire if there 
be any basis, in the nature of things, on which to rest this 
strong declaration of Christ, reaffirmed by the apostle. 
And first, I think, it will not be questioned by any, that 
ordinarily, in men's estimation, giving ranks higher than 
receiving in point of personal dignity and essential noble- 
ness. Man is king over God's earthly creation, chiefly be- 
cause he alone is endowed with the faculty of will. Will- 
power crowns man at once supreme over all his mundane 
fellow creatures, allies him with his uncreated Maker 
and is the most godlike faculty he possesses. By virtue of 
this power of will, man in his sphere and measure is him- 
self a creator, that is, able to generate force from himself 
as a center, and thus set in motion, out of the resources of 
his personality, trains of achievement and influence that 
may be as wide-reaching as the boundaries of our globe. 
Thus, by reason of this exalted power of self-energizing, 
man is fitted to be not only a receiver but like his' Maker 
preeminently a giver. Hence every true man takes an in- 
finitely higher delight in the use of his active, powers 
than in the use of his mere passive powers. There is no 
such enjoyment to a real man in health, as activity through 
the whole range of his being. A brute has nothing of this 
power of personality. A brute can start no trains of in- 



28 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 



fluence; this is man's prerogative. And even when there 
is no specific intention of good will to others, yet no man 
can employ his best powers and faculties and not be a ben- 
efactor. For example, Raphael and Angelo and Phidias, 
creators in the mere realm of beauty, have laid the world 
under imperishable obligations to their genius. Plato and 
Aristotle, creators in the kingdom of thought, will never 
cease to be held as kingly benefactors of our race. And so 
the great poets and orators and writers of the world will 
never cease to rule from their "sculptured urns" the ad- 
miring hearts of mankind. Thus, first of all, I argue from 
the most obvious structure of our being that God has de- 
signed that man's noblest function in this world shall be 
that of a giver and not of a mere receiver. 

But looking still further at our original nature as the 
handiwork of God, we find that giving as well as receiving 
is ordained of heaven as a condition of health in body, 
mind and spirit. The nutriment we take into our bodies 
must go from us again in muscle-force and nerve-force 
and brain-force, or we sink inevitably into disuse and as- 
phyxia. God has beautifully symbolized this necessity of 
our nature, as I think, in the very structure of our nervous 
system. Physiology teaches us that there are two sets of 
nerves traversing the human frame, side by side ; the one 
set called nerves of sensation, the other nerves of motion. 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 



The one nerve line serves as an incoming track for all 
feelings, signals and impressions received by the brain from 
the outer world ; the other nerve track is designed evident- 
ly for all the outgoing cargoes of thought and feeling and 
executive force by which we act on the world around us. 
If either of these nerve lines is destroyed we become at 
once useless and helpless paralytics. So with the intellect. 
If it only receives and does not itself act, energize and be- 
come a thought producer, it has no growth, but sinks into 
imbecility. So with our emotions and sensibilities. If pas- 
sively played upon, as in the excessive reading of highly- 
wrought works of fiction, where no 1 opportunity is given 
for corresponding deeds of charity and self-sacrifice to 
follow excited feelings of compassion and love and pity, 
the feelings at length become exhausted and refuse to act, 
even in sight of real suffering and distress. Every in- 
temperate reader of novels is in danger of becoming, in 
time, a kind of sentimental monstrosity, the healthy bal- 
ance of the moral nature being destroyed, — simply because 
this God-ordained equilibrium between feeling and conduct 
has been trifled with. Thus all through our being we find 
this double track, laid by our Creator, indicating that we 
are not only to receive but to give forth in order to pre- 
serve health. The Dead Sea is dead because it has inlets 
and no outlets. Only a running stream can be kept pure 



30 GIVING AND RECEIVING 



and fresh and living. So a human being who only receives 
and does not give forth is dead, while he has a name to 
live. 

But, I remark again, it is more blessed to give than to 
receive because the blessedness of mere receiving has a 
very narrow orbit and ordinarily reaches a speedy termina- 
tion; while the blessedness of giving is well-nigh illimita- 
ble and inexhaustible in its extent. This will be readily 
seen if we glance at almost any of our passive powers and 
capabilities. The epicure has but one stomach to fill, one 
palate to gratify, though he have a hundred barns and 
storehouses groaning with plenty and though his table be 
laden with the delicacies of every clime. The sensualist 
has but one quickly wasting body to lay on the fiery altar 
of lust. The proudest millionaire can inhabit but one 
dwelling at a time, or wear upon his back but one man's 
complement of apparel. No royal debauchee ever suc- 
ceeded in permanently enlarging the domain of mere ani- 
mal enjoyment. God has put inexorable limits to all hu- 
man capacity in that direction. No man by the aid of 
worldly riches and power ever bribed sickness or decrepi- 
tude or advancing age to exempt him from the common 
lot of mortals. No man, however grasping and overreach- 
ing in his lifetime, when death had seized him, has ever 
been able to occupy more than his lawful share of mother 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 



earth. And so mere wealth and selfish accumulation were 
never able to purchase or secure any of the most priceless 
and glorious blessings of life. Money never yet purchased 
a love of the beautiful or the true or the good. Money 
never yet bought culture, or contentment of mind, or 
greatness of soul, or domestic felicity, or purity of char- 
acter, or generosity or manhood, or any of those shining 
qualities that adorn and characterize God's true nobility 
on earth. Thus we see at a glance that a spirit of inveterate 
self-seeking, the being a mere receiver and absorber of 
God's bounties, has at the best only a most limited and ig- 
noble range in which to gain happiness. 

But look, on the other hand, at a giver or dispenser, in 
God's name, of heavenly bounties received. In the first 
place, every such giver is endued with a power almost 
miraculous to multiply his own enjoyment. If he has 
wealth and worldly abundance, instead of confining him- 
self like an epicure to the delights of one palate, he can 
just as well enjoy the delights of scores or hundreds of 
palates, and, in a way, be followed by no dyspepsia or gout 
or apoplexy or languors or surfeiting. Instead of filling 
one household with sunshine, he can fill a hundred. In- 
stead of causing one heart to sing for joy, he can, with 
heaven's help, fill his ears with a whole orchestra of grate- 
ful soul-music all around him. And this kind of happiness, 



32 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 



notice, does not instantly pall on the taste, like the epi- 
cure's, but the more this appetite for giving is indulged 
the keener and sweeter the heavenly relish grows, and the 
larger are the returns constantly brought back into the 
liberal soul. A benevolent man, moreover, is able to mul- 
tiply his own happiness through organized methods of 
beneficence, such as institutions and corporations of char- 
ity. These overflowing fountains of light and blessedness, 
these monuments of Christlike good will to others, which 
he perhaps has helped erect, will continue to perform their 
heavenly offices toward the needy, the orphaned, the ig- 
norant, the sorrowing and the friendless, when he is busy 
with other duties, while he is sleeping at night and when, 
at last, he is resting in his grave. And what immortal 
benefactors of their kind have been such large-souled and 
imperial givers of their wealth as Yale, Cooper, Williston, 
Peabody, Harvard and Brown — men who have increased 
and multiplied their own personal influence and contem- 
porary fame and power for good ten thousandfold, through 
centuries of time, and not only over one continent but 
round the globe ! 

Look then, my friends, for one moment at such an ex- 
alted and multiplied form of personal happiness and in- 
fluence, and contrast it with the beggarly and skin-bound 
happiness of a mere selfish absorber of God's bounties. 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 



33 



Contemplate this matter of personal happiness for one 
moment under another aspect. God has made us social 
beings, and next to the smile of his Fatherly face upon us, 
our highest happiness comes to us through our social af- 
fections and susceptibilities. The joys and delights of 
friendship and social communion, next to God's own fa- 
vor, are the purest and holiest fountains of enjoyment 
known to the human breast. But a mere self-seeker, a 
mere tireless money-getter and hoarder, is doing all in his 
power to dry up every one of these fountains of blessedness 
which God has originally opened in his soul. By his grov- 
eling and greedy spirit he becomes more and more a re- 
cluse and a social outlaw, an Ishmaelite among men. He 
ceases to have friends because friends are expensive. He 
knows nothing of warm, outgushing, holy human affection, 
for his own sordid breast has become incapable of excit- 
ing or returning it. In his business and in his household 
he is surrounded with hirelings and sycophants who hate 
and despise him, under the mask of punctilious obedience 
and cringing respect. He loses at last all power of sweet 
and manly emotion. No sunshine of sympathy ever flits 
into his stony eye or lights up his pitiless face under the 
tale of human want. No widow's prayers ever call down 
grateful benedictions on his head. No orphans' home or 
desolate household grows brighter at his approaching 



34 GIVING AND RECEIVING 

footstep. No loving, sporting child ever looks up into that 
dehumanized countenance, and does not ,turn away with a 
shudder. God's own blasting and withering judgments have 
already scarred that man in every lineament and through 
every power of his soul. The best part of him has gone 
to the grave long before his tottering body. A few ex- 
pectant relatives linger about him to the end, drape them- 
selves in mocking grief at his funeral, endeavor to drop a 
few decorous tears on his coffin and then hurry home from 
the obsequies with itching fingers to open his will and 
give a hasty ventilation to his musty, long-hoarded, man- 
cursed and God-cursed property. My friends, I ask you, 
is there another such picture of absolute loneliness, of 
awful soul-desertion this side of hell, as the death-bed of 
a miser? 

I remark yet further, giving is more blessed than re- 
ceiving because only by giving can we rise to true fellow- 
ship with God and into a likeness to Christ and into sym- 
pathy with all holy beings above. God is supremely 
blessed in the universe because he is the supreme Giver in 
the universe. Only as we become givers is it possible for 
us in any degree to share divine felicity. And only as we 
become givers can we enter into any true discipleship to 
Him who gave himself for others. "For even the Son of 
man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to 



t 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 35 

give his life a ransom for many/' That jubilant birth-song 
of the heralding angels on the morning of the Nativity, 
you remember, was simply, "good tidings of great joy to 
all people." Of those angels in light, we further read that 
they are "all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for 
them who shall be heirs of salvation.'' And everywhere in 
God's Word is it not clearly intimated that^ the supremest 
joy of that beatified throng is evermore loving ministry 
to the bliss and happiness of others? If, then, to-day, my 
brethren, we have no habit or spirit of giving, as I study 
the Scriptures, we lack the first moral fitness to enter 
heaven. We have not heart power to fellowship, either 
now or hereafter, its holy company. 

And once more I argue before you at this time the 
blessedness of giving, because only what we give in 
Christ's name and for Christ's sake is stored for our fu- 
ture ownership in heaven's indestructible exchequer and in 
God's everlasting remembrance. When death comes, what 
we have kept we lose, what we have given away we save. 
"He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord ; 
and that which he hath given will he pay him again." "In- 
asmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
my brethren," will be our enthroned Saviour's greeting to 
each of us, "ye have done it unto me." If, then, in time 
and in probation we have made generous investments 



36 GIVING AND RECEIVING 

yonder and diligently laid up treasures there, throughout 
unwasting eternal years shall be a ceaseless income and in- 
flow of seraphic happiness into the bosoms of our glori- 
fied and deathless spirits. But if we have made gold our 
god, our cankered and unconsecrated wealth will be a 
damning witness against us in that day. The rust of it 
shall eat our flesh as it were fire and the Master's words, 
''Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye 
did it not to me," will be our condemnation. 

And now, my friends, let me conclude with two remarks. 
First, if giving be indeed thus honored and blessed by the 
ordination of heaven I venture to exhort those to whose 
hands God has given abundantly to know something of 
this divine blessedness while yet among the living. Wait 
not to make death your attorney to dole out with his 
bony fingers your benefactions after you are gone. Stretch 
forth your own warm and living palm, with God's gracious 
bounty in it, to Christ's needy ones around you and know 
something of the Christly joy that shall thrill back again to 
the loving soul. Administrate upon your own estate, ex- 
ecute your own bequests for Christ while it is possible for 
you to take the joy of it here and the reward of it here- 
after. 

Listen to the words of another on this devil's tempta- 
tion to posthumous benevolence. "There is no charity," 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 37 



said the late Dr. Guthrie of Scotland, "in leaving money 
which we could now spare to> do good with when we are 
dead. There is no self-denial, no cross-bearing in that. 
If we could only carry our money with us to another 
world, there might be some virtue in leaving it behind. 
But since we cannot and must leave the world as naked as 
we entered it, there is none. In fact, we are giving away 
what is not ours, what ceases to be ours the moment of 
our decease, and what our right to expires with life. . . The 
fortunes, then, that rear splendid and falsely called chari- 
ties after death, prove nothing in favor of the donors, but 
rather the reverse. They only show how hard and cold 
and grasping and avaricious these men were that only 
death could compel the miser to relax his iron grip of the 
widows' and orphans' bread." 

Let us not cheat ourselves, my friends, with the thought 
that we can be benevolent in the coffin if we have never 
been benevolent before. It we have never shown any 
Christian generosity, any spirit of self-sacrifice as living 
men we certainly never will as dead men. Heed, then, I 
beseech you, those solemn words of inspiration, "Whatso- 
ever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for 
there is no> work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, 
in the grave, whither thou goest." 

Finally, if there be indeed a heavenly blessedness in 



38 GIVING AND RECEIVING 



giving, then to know that blessedness we must not give in 
the spirit of grudging. "God loveth a cheerful giver," 
wrote Paul to the Corinthians; and again, "If there be 
first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a 
man hath, and not according to that he hath not." But 
nowhere, my friends, do I read in this Bible that the sacri- 
fices of an unwilling and grudging spirit are ever accepted 
by the great Heart Searcher above. True Christian giv- 
ing, then, is always heart giving, loving, cheerful, grateful 
giving for His sake who gave all for us. "Freely ye have 
received, freely give," was the Saviour's tender injunction 
to his disciples. 

I have happened to know men possessing large wealth, 
nominally Christian, I grieve to say, whose well-nigh set- 
tled habit, it seemed, was to greet nearly every applicant 
for Christian charity with a morose and repellent discour- 
tesy which they would never display toward any man 
whose business patronage they valued to the extent of a 
dollar. Honored and noble servants of the Lord Jesus, 
too, were some of these applicants. Now I say such giv- 
ing as that is an abomination in the sight of the Lord and 
a disgrace to the Christianity it professes to exemplify. 
If we, then, cannot rise to the blessedness of Christian giv- 
ing, let us at least not descend to the violation of the first 
principles of civility. "Freely ye have received, freely 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 39 

give" are the words that ring evermore in our ears from 
the crucified Lord. Do any of us murmur that heaven's 
marvelous mercies are so constant and so unremitting, 
that day by day, once and again, the abundant table of his 
loving providence is spread before us? Why, then, com- 
plain of the oft return of that higher and truer blessing, 
the luxury of giving? Why will we persist in regarding it 
simply an intrusion, an annoyance, a thorn in the side? 
Why complain that the radiant Master himself, in disguise, 
so often knocks at our doors in the persons of his lowly 
and suffering? Why complain that so often we are called 
to feast upon the heavenly manna of giving, from love to 
Him who loved us unto death? My brethren, I give 
thanks to God that to so many of you this royal privilege 
is no longer a cross; that so many of you now stand on 
the shining summit of a personal experience of the Christ- 
ly blessedness of giving and have proved in your own souls 
the truth of your Saviour's words, "Give, and it shall be 
given unto you ; good measure, pressed down, and shaken 
together, and running over, shall men give into your bos- 
oms." Oh, that we all might know more and more of this 
divine blessedness of giving; that more and more we 
may become so at one with Christ and so fellowship his 
unspeakable sacrifice that our highest privilege shall be to 
bring ourselves, our time, our talents, our business, our 



40 



GIVING AND RECEIVING 



children, our possessions and lay everything a grateful gift 
at his sacred feet ! 

Let me close by adopting as my own the touching words 
of Paul in this farewell interview with those weeping breth- 
ren of Ephesus, even as they hung upon his neck in the 
bitterness of a final parting : "Remember the words of the 
Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than 
to receive." And when the Church has truly learned this 
great lesson of gospel stewardships ; when God's own in- 
finite gift of his Son to die for a lost world has been re- 
inforced by the consecrated giving of his people, how soon 
will the glad tidings of salvation girdle the earth ; how soon 
will great voices be heard in heaven saying, "The king- 
doms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, 
and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever!" 



ENJOYING LIFE 



"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee 
in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, 
and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these 
things God will bring thee into judgment." — Ecclesiastes n: 9. 



ENJOYING LIFE 



These words of Solomon have been differently interpret- 
ed by commentators. Some have taken the whole first 
part of this verse to be ironical, a kind of sacred banter or 
mockery, a sarcastic hortation to the young freely to in- 
dulge in worldly and sensuous pleasure, but with an ab- 
rupt change from sarcasm to seriousness in the conclusion, 
where the admonition is added, (that for all these things 
God will bring them into judgment. 

Now, I must dissent from the opinion that this language 
is sarcastic or ironical. First: because such an interpre- 
tation, to my mind, would throw it violently out of har- 
mony with this whole book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon, if 
I rightly read him, nowhere intimates in this treatise that 
worldly good, that the common providential blessings of 
life are not to be esteemed, rationally enjoyed and received 
with devout thanksgiving; only that they are to be enjoyed 
ever in subordination to higher interests and to the holy 
will of the infinite and gracious Giver. I dissent yet fur- 
ther from the interpretation of irony, because it would 
throw this passage into discord with the great aggregate 
of inspired teaching contained in the Bible. The Bible, my 



44 



ENJOYING LIFE 



friends, is not a morbid book. You can find morbidness 
in plenty in human writings, in religious memoirs and in 
devotional diaries, but never in the Word of God. The 
Bible is never misanthropic, is never ascetic, is never hy- 
pochondriacal. In other words, it never belittles what God 
himself has taken pains to magnify. The infinite Maker of 
all things has set his own seal of honor upon human life, 
upon the outfit of this world and upon every gift of his 
earthly providence. He clearly intended existence to be a 
blessing and not a bane to every creature he has made. 
When he had finished his six days' work at the begin- 
ning, you remember, he unqualifiedly pronounced it 
"good." To all the denizens of the sea, to all roaming 
tribes of the forest, to all the countless populations that 
swarm in the illimitable air, to the minutest creature of 
his hand, God gave life to be a blessing, and ordained that 
during its appointed round it should bask evermore in the 
sunshine of his favor. But over all he has placed man as 
king, — king in nobleness and king in happiness. "Only 
man's own ineffable perversity can defeat the Maker's de- 
sign and change life from an unspeakable boon into an un- 
fathomable curse." 

Still further, I gather from all the intimations of Provi- 
dence and the teachings of the Bible, that God designs 
especially that the period of youth shall be one of su- 



ENJOYING LIFE 45 

perlative cheer and joyousness and happiness. Life is then 
fresh. Health is bounding. Every power is at its best. 
The appetites are keen and natural and unsated. The 
imagination is all aglow with pictures of beauty. The sen- 
sibilities are all quick, delicate, electric, emitting music 
like a harp at every touch. The heart is a fountain of 
guileless affection, outpouring its costliest treasures at the 
feet of every applicant who brings in his hand the golden 
flagon of love. The vile and parasitic growths of avarice, 
jealousy, envy, ambition, have not yet coiled their dark 
roots around the soul, dwarfing the manhood, searing the 
conscience and shutting out the light of heaven from the 
dawning intelligence. The mind is plastic, the emotions 
tender, the reason truthful, the heart loving and trustful. 
O childhood and youth, how beautiful to contemplate ! 

And now, my friends, in my judgment it is no part of re- 
ligion to darken this picture. God never sent religion into 
this world to curdle its joys or to throw one added ray of 
gloom across a single pathway. On the contrary, he sent 
religion into this world to banish gloom, to disarm fear, to 
make both the present and the future of our race inexpres- 
sibly brighter. Rightly understood, then, religion is given to 
make this world sunnier, to widen immeasurably the hori- 
zon of our present enjoyment, and to perpetuate that enjoy- 
ment against all possible future evils. Rightly understood, 



46 ENJOYING LIFE 

religion heightens the value of every gift of God. It trans- 
figures all nature with a new glory. It heightens the colors 
and deepens the lines of beauty penciled upon every flower 
and grass-blade springing at our feet. It makes the sun- 
shine more grateful. It fills the night with a more dazzling 
splendor. It gives to the humblest life, experience, a 
broader and grander meaning. The voice of religion to 
every child of God to-day is : "Rejoice in the priceless 
boon of existence." To every youth as he stands upon its 
threshold, like an Apollo of manly grace and strength, its 
mandate is ; "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let 
thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth." But now, 
religion no more than reason, I call you to notice, encour- 
ages or sanctions irresponsible pleasure. A man can no 
more find happiness in this world in the path of unbridled 
license than a planet, a courser in yonder sky, can dash 
along its radiant orbit safely without the curb of gravita- 
tion thrown athwart its flaming neck ; no more than a lad's 
kite can mount upward to the very battlements of heaven 
without the check and ballast of the string which he holds 
in his hand. In short, we can move toward happiness in 
this world in no direction without confronting constantly 
the limitations and injunctions of law. 

And first, the material laws of our own bodies. You 
are a botanist, or mineralogist, I will suppose, and to-mor- 



ENJOYING LIFE 47 

row you take a country ramble for minerals or to add to 
the contents of your herbarium. You pass in your search 
from crag to< crag and along the dizzy edge of overhang- 
ing precipices, obeying simply your own sweet will, but 
utterly regardless of the law of gravity. How long, I 
ask, could your physical soundness be guaranteed? Or, 
bent simply on sense gratification, you diet upon arsenic, 
because it has a flavor of sweetness on the tongue ; or, 
with unscreened vision you gaze into the cloudless face of 
the noonday sun because Solomon has happened to write: 
"A pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." 
How long could you thus heedlessly transgress funda- 
mental, natural laws around you and not put an end to 
your bodily enjoyment? Or, how long could you run 
counter to the social laws established around you and not 
suffer? Suppose you undertook any day of the week to 
traverse a crowded thoroughfare from end to end, walking 
simply in the way of your own heart and in the sight of 
your own eyes, but utterly oblivious of the rights or con- 
venience of others. How long before, in the clutch of 
a policeman, or within the walls of a station-house, you 
would have abundant leisure to ponder the social problems 
that underlie human intercourse? Or, should a ship's 
captain enter a crowded harbor and navigate his vessel in 
sheer defiance of all maritime law, how long would any in- 
surance company risk a policy on his lawless craft? 



4 8 



ENJOYING LIFE 



Thus at every single step of life, is it not obvious that 
we insure our own happiness, physical and social, simply 
by putting ourselves under bonds to respect the happiness 
of others and to obey that code of laws upon which all 
human happiness is conditioned in this world? In like man- 
ner each one of us, every day of life, is putting himself of 
his own accord under some kind of bonds to> keep peace 
with the future, no matter how little he is actuated by re- 
ligious considerations. As spring stands related to autumn, 
April to September and May to October, so the different 
seasons in our life are vitally related to each other. What 
kind of a harvest could a farmer expect in the fall, who, 
like the sluggard, had slept and idled away all the spring- 
time? What kind of a manhood can an idle and dissolute 
youth expect when by and by he shall garner in the fruit 
of the seed he is now sowing? 

Once more, every man practically admits this truth, 
that there is a kind of just accountability to be maintained 
between the different powers and faculties of his own na- 
ture. Reason as well as religion teaches that there should 
be both king and subjects, noble orders and plebeian ranks 
in the kingdom of the soul. We all know that reason 
rather than appetite should wear the crown. We all con- 
cede that conscience is a better pilot than passion, in- 
tellect a safer guide than impulse, love a better driving 



ENJOYING LIFE 



49 



power than lust behind any man's life ; and so we all read- 
ily acknowledge that, would we live worthily of ourselves, 
some parts of our complex nature must be subordinated 
to other parts. 

But now, one round more remains in this ladder of ac- 
countability we are climbing to-day. The infinite Creator 
of the world, the God of all flesh, has immutably decreed 
that every human being shall reach his acme of highest 
happiness only through a free and loving recognition of 
His divine personality and His sovereign, authority. God 
has made us for himself. He has made the human soul to 
sweep through a majestic orbit of faith, love and wor- 
ship of which Himself is the radiant center. He has made 
every spirit power within us to bloom and ripen to its full 
capacity and its most perfect joy only by communion with 
Himself and by dwelling evermore in the light of His fa- 
vor. 

And now, my friends, consider, if one can wreck his 
happiness by scorning the lowest laws of his body, if he 
can ruin himself by ignoring social responsibilities, if he 
can put his whole enjoyment, present and future, in peril 
by contemning the voice of reason, what disaster irrep- 
arable and now inconceivable, must await that soul, ulti- 
mately essaying to live in open and incorrigible violation 
of the most vital law of all spirit-life in this universe — ac- 



50 



ENJOYING LIFE 



countability to the infinite Father of spirits and to the 
supreme, eternal Governor of the world! God, then, has 
made man for happiness, but for happiness, be it never 
forgotten, under law, under accountability. Lawless hap- 
piness, irresponsible pleasure, I now affirm, is a thing un- 
known to-day in the w r hole empire of the Almighty. 

And now, in the sacred name of religion, I invite you, 
my young friends, to a life of happiness. I invite you to 
taste a feast of enjoyment such as the universe does not 
elsewhere contain. I sound again in your hearing the 
words of the wise man of old: "Rejoice, O young man, in 
thy youth ; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of 
thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the 
sight of thine eyes: but know thou that for all these 
things God will bring thee into judgment." 

I do not ask you to take any somber views of life. I 
have no gospel of asceticism to preach to you. Enjoy- 
ment is your birthright and mine. Life is an unspeakable 
blessing. Existence is a transcendent boon to him who will 
use it as God meant it should be used. It is a glorious 
thing to be a man; to have a man's powers, a man's ca- 
pacities, a man's destiny! It is a glorious thing to be 
placed in a world like this, king and steward of its mar- 
velous treasures ! It is glorious to look out upon God's 
sunshine ; to trace his creative signature in the primeval 



ENJOYING LIFE 51 

rocks and his finger-prints in the flowers ; to study his 
handiwork in the stars ! It is glorious to be dowered with 
a man's influence, a man's brain, a man's heart, a man's 
power to achieve, his grandeur in suffering, his fidelity 
in labor, his nobility in patience ! It is a glorious thing to 
be a youth ! "I have written unto you, young men," says 
the apostle, "because ye are strong" — strong in hope, 
dauntless in resolution, guileless in affection, ardent in im- 
agination, vigorous in execution, unburdened by care, un- 
tainted by vice and unsnared as yet by the great deceiver 
of souls. Oh, it is a glorious thing to see a young man 
standing thus in his strength at the very threshold of life, 
with all its amazing possibilities before him, girded with 
purity and ruddy with hope! 

But oh, my dear friends, believe me, life is not an ir- 
responsible race ! Life is not a mere shake of a gambler's 
box ! Life is not a haphazard voyage on an unruffled sea, 
to be taken without compass or rudder! Oh, life is a 
solemn trust ! It is a voyage to a far-off port, and the soul 
that weighs anchor for that port needs an all-wise pilot. 
There are devil's bridges lurking near! There are storms 
station-signalled! Earnest work is ahead. We carry awful 
values, and there is a possibility that we may never reach 
the harbor. Unless every sail be thrown to the breeze, 
and unsleepingly we steer by the pole-star of God's ever- 



52 ENJOYING LIFE 

lasting truth, we may fall upon the breakers and go down 
at last in eternal wreck ! "O young man, rejoice then in 
thy youth ; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy 
youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the 
sight of thine eyes : but know thou, that for all these 
things God will bring thee into judgment." 

Upon this passage, as now opened, I offer, in conclusion, 
one or two remarks. And first, as I look at it, religion is 
the only thing that can guarantee to any human being the 
full enjoyment of this world. Religion is the only sickle, 
heaven-tempered, put into our hands with which to har- 
vest every blessing of this present life. It is the only key 
given into our possession that can slide the bolt and swing 
wide the gate to every avenue of true happiness earth con- 
tains. Is it not fitting, then, that God's children should be 
exhorted to ''Rejoice evermore"? The Christian is recon- 
ciled to God. A Father's smile rests upon him, and a 
Father's benediction follows him. His present is lumi- 
nous with love and his future with immortal hope. But the 
soul unfilial to God walks ever under his frown. Its every 
pleasure is forfeited. Not a moment's security is pledged. 
It tastes every cup of present happiness in peril of eternal 
unhappiness. Oh, tell me then, how can this world be to 
such a soul other than a very coffin and tomb of all pos- 
sible cheer and joy? Strange, cheat of the "father of 



ENJOYING LIFE 



53 



lies" to persuade the young that religion calls to gloom. 
It calls out of gloom into light ineffable, out of wrath into 
hope inexpressible. Impenitency is soul orphanage here 
and the prelude of never ending exile hereafter. An irre- 
ligious soul, then, it seems to me, should be inconsolable. 
Its reigning mood should be despondent. Laughter and 
mirth do not befit it. It should be habitually downcast. 
It should look upon life as a funeral. It should gaze upon 
the world as robed in sack-cloth. It should abandon 
pleasure and in solitude and mourning contemplate its 
swiftly approaching end. O my friends, I tell you honest- 
ly, had I no hope beyond this life, no sweet assurance of 
sin forgiven and a loving Saviour pledged to keep me and 
mine against that all-adjudging Day, I could not rest. 
Before Him who reads my heart, I declare to you that 
unless heaven should blot out my reason, not for a thou- 
sand worlds would I lay my head on my pillow one night, 
risking eternity, without a comfortable hope that Jesus is 
mine and I am his. Come life or come death, "It is well 
with my soul." For what would be earthly joys, if like 
him who sat at the table of the Sicilian tyrant, I must taste 
life's banquet with a gleaming sword above my head, sus- 
pended by a single hair? Could you sit in a pleasure boat 
with rollicking companions and calmly sip your glass of 
wine, if already in the rapids, and the thunder of the cata- 



54 ENJOYING LIFE 

ract already rilling your ears? O eternity! eternity! how 
can men thus walk daily upon its brink with no terror 
and no Christ! 

How strange that men created for such honor can con- 
sent to cast such dishonor upon God's wondrous gift of 
existence ! How many to-day are spending life seeming- 
ly without the faintest conception of life's true meaning! 
Made to be men, they are living like brutes ; crowned with 
reason, they are wallowing in the filth of the senses. Made 
to hunger for immortal food, they are contented with husks ; 
gifted with a far-reaching vision to scan immortality, they 
narrow their sight to an inch of time and live for the pres- 
ent hour. I tell you, my friends, there is not a reptile that 
crawls the earth to-day so witless. There is not a summer 
insect floating in the air, but, according to the measure 
of its being, honors the gift of life from a Creator's hand 
and loyally fulfils its humble destiny. But man, kingly 
man, made to lift his brow to the stars, and ere long 
to be the peer of angels, how often does his whole 
mortal career seem but one prolonged struggle to dis- 
crown himself and to defeat all the shining purposes of 
God in his creation ! 

I remark, finally, how many all about us to-day are 
spending life as if there were no appointed nor impend- 
ing judgment hour; banishing from thought, it would 



ENJOYING LIFE 



55 



seem, all sense of personal accountability, all forelooking 
to a day of august reckoning with Him who has dowered 
the soul with its amazing powers and opportunities ! How 
strangely do men forget that God means that all lower hap- 
piness shall simply subserve higher happiness, and that 
earth shall be but the shining vestibule of heaven! God in- 
deed has made this world to be enjoyed. He has be- 
neficently ordained that the eye, the ear, the taste, the 
touch and every rightly regulated bodily sense shall be an 
inlet of exquisite enjoyment, but enjoyment ministrative of 
higher enjoyment — enjoyment that shall illumine the rea- 
son, purify the affections, exalt the whole spiritual man- 
hood and qualify us at last for the sinless citizenship of 
the skies. And yet, how many to-day, with more than 
Esau's folly, are bartering their immortal birthright for a 
mess of pottage; dragging down their noblest self into 
a very mire of carnality; putting out the eyes of con- 
science and making the soul, blood-bought by the Son of 
God, a pitiful slave to lust, fashion, frivolity, to the pleas- 
ures of a day and the dissipations of a night; all the 
while forgetting the coming judgment hour! 

The celebrated Dr. Harvey once heard a lady speak of 
the pleasures of the playhouse. He asked her what they 
were. "First, the pleasure of anticipation before I go; 
secondly, the pleasure of participation while I am there; 



56 ENJOYING LIFE 

and, thirdly, the pleasure of recollection in recalling the 
scene when it is over." "Madam," said that most perfect 
Christian gentleman, "Madam, you forget one pleasure." 
"What may it be?" "The pleasure of retrospection, when 
on a dying bed you shall look back on a life immersed in 
frivolities like that!" Oh, it is when we look at such 
squandered lives that we recall the words of Dr. Johnson 
to David Garrick, as together they looked upon a scene of 
glittering prodigality and godless mirth. "David," said 
the great moralist to the great actor, "David, these are the 
things that make death-beds terrible." Oh, then, think 
not that life is a few waves of breath, a few meaningless 
heart-throbs and all is over ! Life, the accountable life of 
an undying man, who shall reveal to us all its present 
prophecies, all its future unfoldings? Accept, then, your 
Maker's gift, cheerfully, hopefully, joyfully accept it — but 
oh, accept it, I beseech you, young men, under some so- 
ber and manly sense of what life means ! Stretch forth 
your hands to gather up every bounty of God's providence. 
Seize greedily upon every means of self-culture. Make the 
most of yourselves. Enjoy the world around you and the 
heavens above you, but enjoy all that you may build up 
a manhood for eternity. 

"The dignity of man into your hands is given; 

Oh, keep it well ; with you it sinks or lifts itself to heaven." 



ENJOYING LIFE 



57 



Lay your foundations deep that the glittering top-stone of 
your character may be laid in heaven. Form your plans, 
pursue your pleasures, choose your companions, select 
your amusements, I beseech you, in view of the endless 
life and a dying last hour and know that at length your 
whole life, freighted with all its endowments and with all 
its possibilities and with all its ineffable issues, must stand 
in the scrutiny of God's judgment day. 



STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 



"Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift 
of God, which is in thee." — 2 Tim 1: 6. 



STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 



The word "gift" is here evidently used in a comprehen- 
sive sense, as denoting not only the ecclesiastical function 
of preaching to which Timothy had now been set apart, 
but also all those personal and circumstantial qualifications 
by which it had been put in the power of this young dis- 
ciple to be useful to the Church and to the world. This 
gift of Timothy then included, we may suppose, his natural 
endowments, his gracious experiences, his providential op- 
portunities, in short, his entire personal outfit and prepa- 
ration for the Christian service to which God had called 
him — a gift divinely conferred but which it lay with him to 
stir up, stimulate to its proper activity and make the most 
of for his Saviour's honor. "I put thee in remembrance," 
says the aged Paul to this son of his in the gospel, "that 
thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee." 

There is a wide difference, we must remember, between 
a gift divinely put into a man and that same gift humanly 
brought out of him. God puts gifts in us; that is his 
sovereign work. He requires that we stir them up and 
bring them out ; that is our human duty. In this matter 
of original endowments, a moment's thought will show us, 



62 STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 



I think, that the divine Benefactor follows almost precise- 
ly the same rule of bestowal that he adopts throughout 
his material and providential kingdoms. If you will notice, 
God seldom confers any blessing in this world in a ma- 
tured and consummated form. In nearly every case, the 
recipient himself has a supplementary work to do, to 
bring up the divine benefit to completion. Throughout 
the kingdoms of nature and providence as well as grace, 
heaven's bounties are for the most part rudimental in 
their character; that is, gifts in germ, seed-forms of be- 
neficence which man himself is to cultivate, develop and 
train up to their intended magnitude and ripeness of val- 
ue. The ordinary blessings of life, unless man is in a state 
of barbarism, I need not remind you are seldom or never 
conferred ready for use. His food he must wrest from 
the unwilling earth by the sweat of his face ; his dwelling, 
covering him from the storm, and his raiment, shielding 
him from the cold, are given not in the finished fabric but 
in the raw material. Man himself must penetrate the for- 
ests for his timber, delve the mines for metals, gather the 
fleece from the roaming flocks, cross the seas and traverse 
distant climes for the materials for his sustenance, his dig- 
nity and his comfort. Moreover, he must invent machin- 
ery, harness the forces of nature to the chariot of his pow- 
er, apply the principles of science and subsidize to his use 



STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 63 



the accumulated experience of generations, before he can 
stand forth the undisputed master and lord of all that do- 
main of earthly blessings which a bountiful Creator has 
put in his power. 

What is true in the material and providential realms, is 
equally so, I apprehend, in the mental and the spiritual. 
I think one might as reasonably expect to strike a spade 
carelessly into the earth and bring to light precious gems 
already cut and polished for some queenly setting, or into a 
gold-mine and bring up gold, not in ore form, rough and 
lusterless, but smelted and coined already into glittering 
eagles or sovereigns, and with the national imprint fresh 
upon them, as to expect to look down into the unstirred 
strata of his own mind, and find there faculties and endow- 
ments already polished and developed up to that measure 
of power which our Creator intends they shall ultimately 
wield. God puts gifts into us; he leaves us to stir them 
up, bring them out, educate them up to their preordained 
standard of efficiency. It is not necessary that we now 
stop to raise the question so often discussed by scholars 
and educators, Which has the greater influence on char- 
acter and ultimate success in life, original endowments or 
education and the force of circumstances? It may be 
readily granted that you cannot educate unless you have 
something to educate. You cannot bring out of a man that 



64 STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 



which his Creator never put in him. No amount of train- 
ing will accomplish much if there be not native gifts to 
start with. But this I take to be the point now involved 
in Paul's exhortation to Timothy : that whatever a man's 
wealth of native ability, whatever regality or splendor of 
natural powers God has invested him with, those powers 
will be practically worthless to the world if neglected, if 
allowed to lie fallow, unstirred by personal exertion. I 
suspect that few persons dream what powers God has put 
into them, until they have searched for them and honestly 
tried to bring them out. 

It is not to be denied that there is a gift sometimes con- 
ferred upon men which we call genius ; that is, some spe- 
cial and extraordinary aptitude or bias of the whole mind 
and the whole man toward some particular calling or 
service in life. I am not now speaking of exceptional devel- 
opments, a morbid precocity, but of this divine bestowment 
in its healthy and normal work. I am bold to say, too, 
whatever the popular misconception, that genius with no 
will power behind it, with no helm, and whose sails are left 
to flap idly in the calm of indolence and whim and impulse 
and caprice, never yet laid the world under any heavy debt 
of obligation. True genius, whatever else it may be, is al- 
ways a talent for hard work, — for earnest, concentrated 
and unflagging hard work. Michael Angelo called it 



STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 65 

"Eternal patience" Those of us past middle life and New 
England born were accustomed, a third of a century ago, 
to look up to that colossal statesman of our land, Daniel 
Webster, whom, in our pride and well-nigh idolatrous af- 
fection we called the "godlike," and imagine that he owed 
his mighty intellectual kingship* over men to the prodigal 
favor of heaven. Unquestionably he did. And yet he 
has left on record this testimony for the encouragement 
of the less gifted : ''Whoever has worked hard for any de- 
gree of success attained, never a man worked harder than 
I." "Men give me some credit for genius/' said Alexander 
Hamilton, one of the most brilliant rising statesmen in our 
early American history, "but all the genius I have lies in 
just this: When I have a subject in hand I study it pro- 
foundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in 
all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it and 
the effort I make the people are pleased to call the fruit of 
genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought." 

You have listened to some queen of song, or to some 
matchless instrumental performer and you have exclaimed, 
"What genius!" "What a gift!" Not always have you 
stopped to remember the patient and painful years of train- 
ing before that wonderful perfection has been reached, be- 
fore those intractable muscles andi rude organs have been 
subdued to such miracles of skill. A great composer was 



66 STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 



once praised for the peculiar ease of his productions. "Ah," 
said he, "but with what difficulty has this ease been 
acquired !" 

When a famous painter was reproached by a patron that 
he had charged him fifty guineas for a painting which it 
took but ten days to paint, **You forget/" replied the great 
artist, "that it has taken thirty years of incredible toil now 
to paint that picture in ten days.'" But I need not multi- 
ply testimony like this, for it is the universal verdict of all 
who have reached eminence along any line of human en- 
deavor that, whatever the original gift, enduring success 
crowns only strenuous and unremitting personal applica- 
tion. 

My friends, God may not have created us prodigies of 
native ability in any direction. He may have dowered us 
with no dazzling original powers of any kind. But this he 
has done : he has put into each one of us, as his human 
child, some gift that he has put into no other creature of 
his hand. Not a human being lives, high or humble, but 
has received his own ''proper gift of God" — a gift in some 
respects unlike any other ever conferred. Not a man or 
woman lives but has a talent peculiar to himself or herself. 
Not one is so meagerly endowed that in some direc- 
tion he cannot achieve superiority and make his indi- 
viduality felt by all around him. Whatever that pe- 



STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 67 



culiar gift or talent may be, I am prepared to af- 
firm that if we have entered Christ's service, if we have 
given our saved life gratefully and loyally to him, first of 
all we owe the gift to Christ our Lord. If our original 
faculties, if our intellectual acquirements, if our artistic 
skill, if our providential opportunities or social position or 
life-discipline have been such that in any direction and in 
any special degree we can now make ourselves a moral, 
social or spiritual force among men, we are bound as 
Christ's disciples, unless I mistake the whole tenor of his 
teachings, to lay that special capability at his divine feet, 
baptize it with his spirit, and, so far as in us lies, make it 
a hallowed instrumentality for the honor of his name and 
the spread of his kingdom through the earth. 

Right at this point, a consideration of vital importance, 
as it seems to me, to this whole topic in hand presses upon 
our notice. It is this: that when you and I, my fellow 
worker, shall be called at last to render our great life-ac- 
count for the use of gifts received, those gifts will be re- 
called not as originally given, but as He who gave them 
has put it into our human power to enlarge, multiply and 
develop them. If you will turn now to that notable par- 
able of the talents which Matthew has recorded in the 
twenty-fifth chapter of his Gospel, you will notice that the 
withering anathema there pronounced on the servant who 



68 STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 



had received but one talent was not pronounced because 
that servant had lost anything or squandered anything. 
Not at all. He had hidden his talent away in a place of 
perfect safety. He had buried it, doubtless, under cover of 
darkness in an unfrequented spot and with the most ju- 
dicious secretiveness in the bosom of the earth. He brought 
it back to his summoning lord just as intact and unin- 
jured as it was at the moment he received it. But the 
terrible rebuke that fell on his recreant head at his, lord's 
return was evoked, you remember, by the simple fact that 
he had done nothing with his talent, had not carried it into 
trade, wisely invested it and legitimately augmented its 
original value. That was the one blasting and unatonable 
sin of defalcation laid to his charge, as he went forth 
speechless into outer darkness. 

Now, my friends, manifestly it will not be enough that 
you and I return our Creator a gift of his just as he con- 
ferred it. That gift must be multiplied, educated, increased 
up to the measure of our providential ability to increase it. 
I take this to be the clear doctrine of accountability as 
set forth by our Lord so graphically in his parable of the 
talents. 

So important is this principle involved, let me dwell 
upon it for a moment. Suppose, then, in the way of illus- 
tration, that I owe to my Maker to-day a given amount 



STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 69 



of physical service, of bodily labor. Like those perhaps 
who built the old temple, there is due from me a certain 
outlay and appliance of physical strength for the honor 
and glory of God. If then, to start with, my full bodily 
furnishing could be rated at fifty-pounds power, but if 
with a proper development of my muscular resources, 
through the aid of modern athletics, I could, in due time, 
just as easily wield a force of five hundred pounds as fifty, 
is it not plain that when called to report for my quotum of 
service, I must report not simply the fifty-pound talent 
with which I started, but the five-hundred-pound talent 
which was the natural and normal limit of my physical 
ability? So in other spheres, it seems to me, precisely 
the same principle applies ; along other lines evidently the 
same principle holds. Let us suppose one is natively en- 
dowed with a certain intellectual force for his Maker's 
honor and the benefit of men. But if by proper self-effort 
and discipline, that native mind-force can be almost in- 
definitely increased, think you that potential increase will 
be uncalled for at last? So, one has an original talent for 
speech, a native tongue-power with which to move and 
mold men — and a mighty power it is ! But by practice, 
courage, discipline, timeliness of effort, that speech-gift 
can receive ten, twenty, fifty times its present efficiency. 
How will that gift be required at last, think you, my 



70 STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 



brother, in germ, or will it be required with all the adden- 
dum which that providential power had been given to 
make of it? Judge ye! 

So whatever gift or opportunity any man or woman has 
to-day for Christian labor and influence and discipleship 
(as I understand discipleship) the great Accountant in the 
august hour of final reviewal will call that disciple to an- 
swer, not for that gift or power as it may now be — dwarfed, 
mute, latent, crippled, the napkin in which it was hidden 
turned into a grave-cloth, but for all that it was possible by 
diligent self-development to make out of that original and 
shining endowment. If this view now taken be correct, 
how sad the spectacle furnished by the nominal church of 
God of unstirred personal gifts ! The waste of mind and 
life-force total and irretrievable by the unconverted mul- 
titudes around us, we need not now stop to deplore. But 
among the enrolled loyalists of the heavenly King, the ac- 
knowledged stewards of the mysteries of God, what mines 
of spiritual power all unworked, what gifts unemployed, 
what talents buried in the earth ! 

It was a humiliating opinion expressed years ago by one 
of the most eminent and beloved pastors of this land, Al- 
bert Barnes, that hardly more than one-fifth of the laity, 
even in the most favored churches of that day, hardly one 
in five could be reckoned upon by any pastor in the crisis 



STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 71 



of a true, aggressive onset upon the strongholds of sin 
and unrighteousness. They counted numerically. They 
swelled the mere physical bulk of the visible communion 
of the Lord. That was about all the outcome of their 
professed fealty to the cause of the Master. O friends, not 
in this world will be known the difference between a gift 
used and unused for the divine glory of God! Historical 
illustrations could be cited in abundance. Let one or two 
suffice: 

John Kitto, at his death, occurring not many years ago, 
had placed himself in the unchallenged forefront of the 
Biblical scholars of his age. John Kitto began life in 
an English poorhouse, — a child of poverty, wretchedness 
and abuse, without friends or station. But he early gave 
his heart to Christ and with his heart he gave his talents. 
He soon exhibited remarkable powers. By the most un- 
daunted energy and perseverance he acquired an educa- 
tion. He traveled widely, labored indefatigably through a 
long life, and died leaving the impress of his masterly 
scholarship upon the whole Christian literature of his gen- 
eration. Where is there a Bible student to-day in the 
whole English-speaking world unfamiliar with the name 
of John Kitto? 

Edward Irving, the poor waif that came up from a 
London workhouse, might have lived and died an un- 



72 STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 



heard-of Scotch tanner, as his father died before him, 
among the hills of Dumfrieshire, Scotland. But he was 
not contented to neglect native gifts, and at length moved 
the whole English parliament and all London by the might 
of his Christian eloquence. 

Look at the life of Adoniram Judson, the missionary, a 
poor, poverty-trained boy in eastern Massachusetts, which 
Theodore Parker declared in its finished record before the 
world, "a grander spectacle than the Parthenon." Try for 
one moment to span the difference between talents like 
Judson's, from early youth devoted to God's service and 
humanity, and such talents running to waste, never heard 
of or employed in the great world-vineyard of the Master. 

Or, not to instance merely such marked historic exam- 
ples, let me now ask, what of every private Christian in 
each one of our churches of no more education or native 
ability than John Vassar, or Kingsley Burnell, or Jerry 
McAuley or Dwight Moody? Should he not, nevertheless, 
use his gift and every opportunity and power of speech and 
example to win men to righteousness and the blessed life 
beyond? How long, think you, would these churches of 
ours remain handicapped by the customs of the world, un- 
blest of the Master's radiant presence? O my brethren, in 
contrast with what might be done, look at the unstirred 
gifts to-day in the Church of God ! 



STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 73 

But I must not close without calling your attention 
to the peculiar timeliness of this address to Timothy. 
When these words were written to Timothy he was a 
young man. I would not say that such an exhortation 
would be out of place addressed to any age or class in life. 
And yet, I suspect that Paul would never have had the 
heart to send such' a message as this to Timothy if his head 
had already been silvered over with the frosts of years, and 
he had been nearing the sunset of life. It is no easy mat- 
ter, my friends, as you well know, radically to reconstruct 
any man's habits and methods of life when past youth and 
early manhood. In youth-time mind and heart are plas- 
tic and flexible, quickly responding to noble appeal and 
educational enthusiasm. New habits are taken on easily. 
Not much can you do with the gnarled and century-twist- 
ed patriarchs of the forest. Hence all wise pastors have 
ever deemed it of the greatest importance that at the very 
birth-hour of Christian character, those entering into open 
discipleship to Christ should come at once into a clear and 
unmistakable apprehension of this great New Testament 
doctrine of stewardship. According to my experience, 
permit me to add, the sentiments and principles of Chris- 
tian living then adopted by the young disciple, in the great 
majority of cases cling to him through life and essential- 
ly modify and determine the whole aggregated life-result 



74 STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 



of his personal connection with the Church of God. May 
I be pardoned then, if, addressing my younger friends to- 
day, I put you in remembrance that you stir up betimes the 
gift which God has put into you? 

To do this, it is not always imperative that you occupy a 
pulpit or engage in professional evangelism. There are dif- 
ferent ways to serve God. George Macdonald in one of his 
books tells of a humble Scotch cobbler who, converted on 
his death-bed, wanted to get well, simply that he might 
thenceforward show the world "how a Christian could 
make shoes." Love to Christ, flaming in the human heart, 
glorifies the lowest toil of earth. "O God," said Kepler, 
prince of astronomers and prince among believers, "O 
God, I think thy thoughts after thee !" as he sought to find 
God's plan in the flashing swing of the stars. 

While Professor Henry of the Smithsonian Institute in 
Washington was prosecuting, a few years ago, his re- 
markable experiments in telegraphy, when about to per- 
form a critical test, he would turn to his assistant and rev- 
erently say, "Be silent, I am now going to ask God a ques- 
tion !" thus adoringly laying all his science and its out- 
come at the feet of Him to whom he devoted his life. 

When Stanley found Livingstone, nearly a score of years 
ago, in the depths of Africa, dead on his knees in a negro 
hut, he soon found by his inanimate form his diary, and 



STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 75 



almost its last entry read as follows: "March 19, 1872. 
Birthday. My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All ! Again I 
dedicate my whole self to Thee." The world now has the 
open secret of David Livingstone's life : a consecrated pur- 
pose to open up the Dark Continent to the light of mod- 
ern civilization and to the light which shines from the hill 
of Calvary. 

Whatever our providential calling, our aim and our pur- 
pose should be to enthrone God and his righteousness fi- 
nally around this earth. When an early Spanish explorer 
from the tops of the Andes first caught sight of the mighty 
Pacific, history tells us that he descended to its shore, 
waded into the water, bearing in one hand a drawn sword, 
and in the other the banner of Castile, and took possession 
of the ocean and all the coasts washed by its waves for the 
crown of Spain. Brethren, you and I serve another King. 
From continent to continent, from shore to shore this ran- 
somed world belongs to Jesus Christ. Are you and I, who, 
by and by, with the great multitude yonder, shall share 
in the eternal victory, doing our part to-day, with un- 
sheathed swords, in the mighty conflict? 

"Christ for the world we sing; 
The world to Christ we bring 

With loving zeal; 
The poor and them that mourn, 
The faint and overborne, 



76 STIRRING UP THE INWARD GIFT 



Sin-sick and sorrow-worn, 

Whom Christ doth heal." 

"Christ for the world we sing; 
The world to Christ we bring 

With fervent prayer; 
The wayward and the lost, 
By restless passions tossed, 
Redeemed at countless cost 

From dark despair." 



GOD'S PART AND OUR PART 
IN REDEMPTION 

"And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed." 
Luke 17: 14. 



GOD'S PART AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 



This was said, you will remember, of the ten lepers whom 
our Saviour met at the entrance-way of a certain Samari- 
tan village. At his approach these unfortunate men, we 
read, lifted up the cry, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us !" 
And the simple record of the evangelist is : " When he saw 
fthem, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the 
priests." This direction was given evidently in accordance 
with a Mosaic law making it the duty of a leper, whenever 
or wherever healed, to report himself to the priest for a cer- 
tificate of cure, and for official testimony that he was no 
longer to be regarded as ceremonially or socially unclean. 
Christ, then, meets the earnest supplication of this leprous 
band with a simple command "Go show yourselves unto 
the priests !" He does not at once put forth his miraculous 
energy in their behalf. He imposes an antecedent condi- 
tion. He couples the divine and wonderful blessing which 
he is about to bestow with a specific human duty which 
they are to perform. 

"And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were 
cleansed." Not before they went, not after they went, but 
"as they went." The human obedience and the divine bless- 



So GOD'S, AXD OUR PART IX REDEMPTION 



ing were thus yoked together, and walked abreast along 
the same Jerusalem highway. Priority, antecedence, is af- 
firmed of neither the divine nor the human agency; they 
were simultaneous and inseparable. 

It is not my purpose at this time to enter upon the purely 
metaphysical question. What is the precise causal relation 
existing between the divine will and the human will in the 
great matter of the soul's conversion to God? My opinion 
is, I may simply say in passing, that a full understanding 
of this subject, metaphysically, lies beyond the powers of 
the human mind. Philosophy, I take it, when on flashing 
wing she has soared to her proudest heights of explora- 
tion, will never be able to tell us how God can create or 
govern a free being. And yet freedom, absolute creature 
liberty, is the very foundation-postulate of all moral gov- 
ernment and of all human responsibility. How God can 
be sovereign over his universe, as absolutely over the 
world of spirit as of matter, over every atom floating in 
space and over every volition of every creature he has 
made, is a problem beyond human explanation. How the 
eternal energy and foreordinating counsels of the Al- 
mighty can thus impinge on the orbit of finite liberty, in- 
terpenetrate it and direct toward a predetermined end the 
whole aggregated current of human activity, and yet man's 
freedom, perfect accountability, remain intact and unhin- 



GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 81 



dered — this is a problem, I repeat, human reason shall 
never solve in this world. And yet, with all the specula- 
tive mystery and fog oftentimes thrown around this sub- 
ject, these two great twin truths, God's absolute regency 
over men, and man's absolute liberty of choice, have stood 
forth for generations, pillared in the faith of the Christian 
Church as the summation of Scriptural teaching and as 
the only goal at which the world's keenest and profound- 
est thinking can at last arrive. 

But, as I have said, my present purpose is practical 
rather than speculative. Whatever obscurity technical the- 
ologians, in time past, have thrown around the connection 
between divine and human agency, between man's duty 
and God's grace in the work of religion, the Bible is re- 
sponsible for none of it. The Bible is a practical book; 
it, therefore, never arrays God's sovereignty and man's 
freedom in an attitude of antagonism to each other, but 
always in rational coincidence and in perfect practical har- 
mony. 

Why, then, the great question now arises, do we in our 
human teachings and theorizings and in our own actual 
experiences so often fall into mental confusion and incon- 
sistency on the whole subject? I answer, first: because the 
great mass of mankind forget that religion is a thing 
first of all to be lived out and not a thing first of all to be 



82 GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 



thought out, a thing to be practiced and not a thing to be 
abstractly formulated by the intellect. Now neither Christ 
nor his apostles, I am bold to say, in all their teachings, 
ever announced a truth, a fact or tenet which was not 
meant to touch human life practically, experimentally, and 
enter at once as a spiritual factor into the great current of 
the soul's everlasting history. It is true, I admit, that 
the truths of the Bible not infrequently have been cata- 
logued by religious instructors in a way to imply that 
there is a wide practical difference between them. Thus 
by many religion has been set forth under the two heads 
of doctrine and precept ; as though a "doctrine" was a 
thing simply for the head, and a "precept" a thing for the 
heart, or conduct. Thus we hear of doctrinal preaching 
and practical preaching. But as I understand it, both the 
doctrines and precepts of the gospel are but different sides 
of the same great body of spiritual truth revealed for our 
eternal redemption. 

A gospel precept, to my mind, has no true power or 
pungency that is not rooted directly in some gospel doc- 
trine. A gospel doctrine, on the other hand, is most 
unworthily preached which in the end does not flower into 
some living precept or golden rule, fitted toi adorn and 
regulate the whole accountable life of man. 

The whole gospel, as I read it, both doctrinally and pre- 



GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 83 



ceptively, sums itself up in a series of commands to reli- 
gious activity; calls to personal human duty. As the royal 
preacher puts it, "This is the conclusion of the whole 
matter, that we fear God and keep his commandments." 
It is, however, not to be denied that many of the doc- 
trines of the gospel, when brought under examination soon 
run back into speculative mystery, — doctrines like the 
Trinity, the atonement, regeneration and the effectual in- 
fluences of the Holy Spirit on human hearts. But these 
great doctrines, I now ask you to observe, touch our finite 
life, so to speak, only at a single angle. We do not see the 
whole truth. It was never designed that we should see the 
whole truth. And we, further, do not need to see the whole 
truth in order to get all the intended religious benefit out 
of it, any more than we need to see the whole of a majes- 
tic cloud which on a summer's day rides up into the sky, 
suddenly darkens the whole heavens, pours at length its 
refreshing blessing upon us, and then glides silently away 
into the trackless depths of space. 

So these mighty truths of our redemption, which cen- 
ter in the very being of the triune Godhead, sweep down 
upon us from their majestic heights, touch our mortal life 
at a single point, do a blessed work for our fallen souls, 
and then instantly stretch away into illimitable depths, 
where no finite reason can follow them. 



84 GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 

But because we cannot grasp a doctrine speculatively 
does it follow that we cannot embrace it religiously? Cer- 
tainly not. No more than it follows that a fisherman, 
'whose hut is on the ocean side cannot cruise along the 
coast and gain his livelihood from the beneficial waters, 
because, forsooth, he does not understand scientifically all 
the depths and mysteries of that boundless main which 
evermore thunders at his feet. Now, as I look at it, there 
are two ways to' study a religious doctrine — a legitimate, 
and, as I hold, an illegitimate. I put no ban on the human 
reason. God himself has set it, as the very Kohinoor of 
faculties, in the dazzling crown of our manhood. If there 
be any truths in this universe fitted to stir to< profoundest 
depths the human intellect, I believe them to be the 
truths of this revelation. 

But, as we have now seen, every great doctrine of Scrip- 
ture has two distinct relations, a relation toward man and 
a relation toward God. Every gospel doctrine has two 
sides to it, a Godward) side and a manward side. On the 
lower and manward side that doctrine enters the sphere 
of human accountability and concerns human duty. But 
on the upper or Godward side that doctrine stretches 
away from mortal gaze, an incomprehensible and moun- 
tainous mystery, winding backward, it may be, through 
eternal cycles until it nestles at last in the very bosom of 



GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 85 



uncreated Deity. With that side of the doctrine, I hold, 
my finite reason has legitimately nothing to do. 

I am now in the region of worship, of adoring, speech- 
less faith and no longer in the sphere of analytic reason. 
But on the lower side of that doctrine, when it touches my 
human obligation and concerns my human practice, I am 
bound to use my reason to the utmost, to analyze, discrim- 
inate and apply that doctrine, in all its manifold bearings, to 
my human welfare, duty and destiny. "Secret things be- 
long unto the Lord our God: but those things which are 
revealed belong unto< us and to our children for ever, that 
we may do all the words of this law!' 

And just as there is a manward side and a Godward 
side to every gospel doctrine, so there is what we may call 
a human-agency side, and a divine-agency side. Paul writes 
the Philippians : "Work out your own salvation with fear 
and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both 
to will and to do of his good pleasure." Thus in the gos- 
pel plan, man has his sphere and God has his sphere. Man 
works and God works. They work together, and in no 
instance do the Scriptures imply that there is the slightest 
jar between them. But now, how many Christians, in- 
stead of making the doctrine of election, for example, or 
God's personal supremacy over this world, what he in- 
tended those doctrines to be, a comfort, a joy, a rock of 



86 GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 



everlasting assurance to his children, make them only a 
mental torment all their days! And why? Just because, 
while in other matters they are willing to use their com- 
mon sense, in religion they imagine that every-day com- 
mon sense is to be ruled out, and in place of it is to be 
used a kind of uncommon or metaphysical sense. 

Men find no trouble with these great doctrines in trans- 
acting their daily business, in raising their yearly crops, in 
performing their stated domestic duties, although they 
enter as really into all these departments as into the re- 
ligious department. But when men deal with religion 
they must straightway become profound and impractical 
philosophers. 

Now, my friends, as I have already said, these great doc- 
trines of God's elective grace and providential sovereignty 
over human affairs, have been revealed to us in his Word 
for a directly practical end. They are the most practical 
truths in all the world, and only as practical truths have 
we any concern with them. If we choose to grapple with 
them as purely metaphysical puzzles or conundrums, the 
struggle possibly may have some value as a sort of mental 
gymnastic, but we have passed over, we must remember, 
jfrom the manward side of the doctrine to the Godward 
side. We are beyond our powers. No human mind, I 
speak unqualifiedly, ever yet understood, metaphysically, 



GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 87 



the doctrine of election, — that is, the exact relation be- 
tween divine grace and human accountability — and no 
human mind ever will understand it, in this world ; we may- 
be sure of that. 

Not that reason contradicts it, but reason cannot com- 
pass it. It must, therefore, be embraced, if at all, prac- 
tically; and that, in fact, is /the only way it was ever in- 
tended to be embraced by any human soul. But now, be- 
cause we cannot understand just how God works in the 
great scheme of human salvation, shall we for that reason 
refuse to do our work? Because we do not know just what 
God's sphere is, shall we neglect our own sphere? If the 
pathway of divine agency in religion is left somewhat ob- 
scure, the pathway of human agency, surely, is made so 
plain and straightforward that the wayfaring man, though 
a fool, need not err therein. The Bible abounds in the 
most explicit directions for our human guidance in all re- 
ligious matters. To neglect, then, to use our own free 
agency in gaining heaven, because we do not know just 
what God's agency will be in connection with ours, would 
be as irrational as if a soldier in war should refuse to obey 
his captain or colonel and to march and fight with his 
regiment, because he did not know just what the plan of 
the whole campaign was, as it lay in the mind of the lieu- 
tenant-general, or just what the policy of the government 



88 GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 



itself was, as it lay, perhaps undisclosed as yet, in the soli- 
tary brain of the prime minister or president of the coun- 
try. Let that soldier in the ranks do his duty, you would 
say, and leave the minister or president to do his, and 
there will be no clash between them. 

I wish now, my friends, to apply this whole subject, thus 
far perhaps somewhat abstrusely expounded, to several 
most important and vital practical particulars. 

And first, there is a large class of persons, I am led to 
think, in every church-going community who thus far 
stand aloof from the duties of personal religion, because 
they do not as yet intellectually comprehend all the truths 
and doctrines and mysteries that in any and every way 
stand related to the subject. These persons, on closer ac- 
quaintance, we find are laboriously striving to enter heaven 
through the gateway of their own reason. They seem de- 
termined not to yield to the plain requirements of the gos- 
pel until with their Unite minds they shall understand in- 
finite truth. They have a stupendous contract on their 
hands. Unwilling to become Christians in God's way, 
which is obedience, they are struggling to become Chris- 
tians in their way, which is speculation. Hence they have 
resolved, apparently, not to undertake their own duty, 
however simple, until they shall know just how the Al- 
mighty will perform his work when they have performed 



GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 89 



theirs. Now the conversion of such persons, it is safe 
to say, unless this whole base of procedure is changed, is 
as far off as the sunset of eternity. 

But there is another class of the undecided and the un- 
converted, who, I am convinced, are in far more honest 
difficulty than those now mentioned. There are many, I 
am confident, to-day in every Christian congregation who 
sincerely desire to become Christians ; to take their stand 
openly on the Lord's side; but they are in doubt just how 
to begin, just how to take the first step. They have been 
accustomed to think all their life long of religion as some- 
thing very mysterious and incomprehensible. They have 
somehow got the idea that they must wait God's time in 
this matter, — wait for some marvelous work of the Holy 
Spirit to be wrought upon them ; some strange, inner 
revelation of divine grace, or irresistible outside pressure 
or revival to lift them up and sweep them along as on a 
flood-tide of light and excitement up to the very gates of 
Paradise. 

But, friends, as the gospel teaches religion, it is the sim- 
plest, thing in all the world. We are to do our work and 
let God do his work. But you say, Must not divine grace 
change the heart? Are we not dependent on the regen- 
erating Spirit from above, in conversion? Certainly we 
are; but that is God's matter, not yours, or mine. We are 



9o GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 



to attend to our agency and let God attend to his. We 
are to keep in our sphere, and not try to enter God's sphere 
and do his work as well as ours. 

Now if you will look at the commands of our Saviour, 
when he called his first disciples into his service, you will 
notice how wonderfully simple those commands were : 
"Follow me ;" "Take my yoke ;" "Deny; yourself ;" "Bear 
your cross." Nothing is said about getting a "hope," 
about going through some marvelous inward "experi- 
ence," before they could begin. Nothing is said about 
having a conscious change of heart before they could start 
for heaven, or do Christian service. They did have a 
change of heart, it is true, the very moment they began to 
follow Jesus. But that was God's work, not theirs. Their 
simple duty was to take up their cross and follow Christ 
whithersoever he led the way, and the instant they did that 
God did all the rest. How or when or in what manner 
God did his work was no concern of theirs. Their one 
duty was to' obey Christ. 

Now, my dear friend, you honestly wish to become a 
Christian, but you think you must wait for some marvelous 
experience, for some irresistible Pentecostal power to 
swoop down upon you and instantly fill all the sluggish 
sails of your irresolution and, almost whether you will or 
not, drive you into the kingdom of heaven. Until this 



GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 91 



"experience" comes you think you cannot start to be a 
Christian. Now, in all this Bible I challenge you to find 
me one passage or clause of a passage that authorizes you 
or me to wait for anything one minute, as unconverted sin- 
ners, before following Christ and obeying his divine com- 
mands. 

We are not asked to regenerate our own hearts. That 
is God's work. We are commanded to follow Christ. 
We are not asked to beget within ourselves this or that 
wonderful experience; but we are commanded to take up 
our cross, turn our back on sin, humbly seek Christ's for- 
giving love and evermore serve him as our chosen Leader 
and Lord. 

And now, my friend, if you will thus begin, you need 
not wait a day, an hour, one minute. Begin, with the first 
duty at hand, which you know you ought to do as a Chris- 
tian. Then take the second duty, and then the third. 
And if thus you go forward and God does not at length 
meet you, with all the wealth of his omnipotent grace, 
yours will be the first instance in all the history of God's 
ransomed Church, where a merciful God was not willing 
to do his part when a seeking human soul was ready to 
do its part in the great work of salvation. "And it came 
to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed." 

And now a word to some who are just beginning, as 
they humbly trust, the Christian life. 



92 GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 

Great mental confusion and suffering at times, I am 
convinced, is occasioned young disciples because they do 
not rightly apprehend the simple, practical teaching of the 
New Testament on this subject of the new birth or change 
of heart. Many new converts, I find, are not contented to 
do simply their own duty, but they must distress themselves 
lest somehow God should fail to do his part of the work. 
They seek for evidence prematurely that they have, been 
converted. Almost before they have begun to follow 
Jesus or carry their cross at all, they aspire to possess all 
the most vivid and joyful experiences of the most ad- 
vanced Christians. Hence, instead of keeping their eye on 
the distant goal and pressing steadily toward it, they halt 
every few steps in the race and sit down to examine them- 
selves and see if the divine Spirit is actually producing in 
their souls all the anticipated fruits of regeneration. They 
are willing to do their duty, but are troubled lest the 
blessed Master shall not fulfil all his divine promises. 
Hence if a dark day comes on, when hope is not quite so 
bright and happiness not quite so jubilant, they get dis- 
couraged and feel almost like giving up the whole attempt 
to live a Christian life. 

Now, my young fellow believers, let me say to you, in 
all frankness and kindness, that your inward experiences 
and your inward happiness are something with which you 



GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 93 



have nothing whatever to do. It is a very small matter, 
in my judgment, whether your experiences to begin with 
are of one kind or another. It is a very small matter 
whether you are happy or unhappy. The great, the only 
vital question is, Are you holding on in obedience to 
Christ? Are you bearing your cross daily after him? Are 
you keeping his commandments? If you are, then let in- 
ward experiences take care of themselves. Those matters 
will all come right in due time, as God Almighty is faith- 
ful and true. 

Turn back to those lepers. How were they cured? Sim- 
ply by obeying Christ. Going to the priest was their work. 
Healing their loathsome malady was the miraculous work 
of Jesus. 

What, now, if those men had conducted themselves af- 
ter the fashion of some modern Christians? Proceeding a 
few steps, they would' have stopped for personal examina- 
tion, to see if the cure had really begun; then perhaps a 
little farther, and another halt ; and so they would haVe 
gone hesitatingly along, their gaze selfward and not for- 
ward 1 and by their double effort they would have forfeited, 
or would have deserved to forfeit, the very blessing they 
were after. But only one thought possessed these men, and 
that was, with all speed to carry out Christ's command. 
"As they went, they were cleansed." 



94 GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 

And this incident, as it seems to me, illustrates perfectly 
the operations of the human mind in the whole realm of 
religion. A Christian looks within himself to find evidence 
that he is born again. He wishes to know if he really 
loves God and Christ and is truly penitent and believing, 
and, therefore, instead of going earnestly forward in the 
plain path of duty and letting love and penitence and faith 
kindle by the way, and flame out as he goes along, he must 
stop every little while and analyze himself, feel his own 
pulse — to see if he is alive — lay hold of some sensitive 
Christian affection, throttle it and hold it up to the light 
to see if it is a genuine Christian grace. Of course such 
an unnatural vivisection of one's self kills out the very 
emotion he is seeking for. 

So with happiness. Many Christians mourn that they 
get so little happiness out of their religion. Why is it? 
I suspect because they are seeking happiness, directly for 
happiness. Now, my friends, let me tell you a secret. No 
human being ever yet got happiness out of religion or 
out of anything else, who lived directly for it. Happiness, 
to be found, must not be pursued. Pursue it and it will sure- 
ly outrun you. But would you be a truly happy Christian, 
forget all about your own happiness. Trample it sub- 
limely under foot, and let mind and heart and soul be 
filled, flooded with the great and glorious inspirations of 



GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 95 



Christian service and Christlike self-denial, and then hap- 
piness at length will flow in upon you in blessed and over- 
whelming measure, just because you thought nothing 
about it. "And it came to pass, that, as they went, they 
were cleansed." 

In like manner this principle might be applied to the 
whole work of Christian experience. 

I hear Christians praying to be sanctified, — and then I 
see them sit down, fold their hands and wait for the sup- 
plicated blessing to come, as though God would take up 
grace or holiness like some portable substance or fluid 
and convey it into their hearts, independent of their own 
exertion or agency. But, friends, remember this, an in- 
dolent, lethargic and undutiful Christian never yet grew 
in the grace of God since the world stood. "As they w T ent, 
they were cleansed." 

So in affliction. Christians often examine themselves to 
see if they are duly profiting under the rod. But 1 not un- 
likely they find their hearts insensible, stunned by the 
great blow that has fallen upon them. But let them re- 
signedly and filially do and bear all God's sovereign will, 
and afterwards, though not at the time, they shall see that 
they were indeed purified and refined, as patiently and 
unmurmuringly they walked through the glistering furnace 
of trial. "As they went, they were cleansed." 



96 GOD'S, AND OUR PART IN REDEMPTION 

And now I conclude with a word. Brethren, let us never 
forget that the essence of religion, as taught in the New 
Testament, is simple obedience to the commands of Jesus 
Christ, and not the intellectual mastery of a body of meta- 
physical divinity. Religion, indeed, has a supernatural side 
to it; but that is a side to be embraced by faith, and not to 
be subjugated by the reason. These infinite truths of our 
redemption we are to study as they touch our human life 
practically ; beyond that we have no religious concern with 
them. "If ye love me, keep my commandments," were 
Christ's parting words to his disciples. Obedience — obe- 
dience, then, to the great Captain of our salvation should 
wave the single watchword on every blood-crimsoned ban- 
ner of our crucified Lord. We are not to waste our spirit- 
ual energy on themes beyond us. We are not to distress 
ourselves with immature and as yet unsatisfactory experi- 
ences. Faithfully we are to do our heaven-appointed 
human duty, and leave results with God. 

Going forward then, as Jesus bids us, on the upward shin- 
ing way, at length, as he is faithful, our sin-sick souls shall 
be gloriously and eternally healed. "And it came to pass, 
that, as they went, they were cleansed." 



THE ALABASTER BOX 

what purpose is this waste?" — Matt. 26: 8. 



THE ALABASTER BOX 



"There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very 
precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. But 
when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what pur- 
pose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for 
much, and given to the poor. When Jesus understood it, he said 
unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a 
good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you; but 
me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment 
on my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, Where- 
soever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall 
also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her." 
— Matt. 26 7-13. 

I doubt if in the whole Gospel is recorded a more touch- 
ing incident than this— an instance of more genuine and 
outgushing affection for the Master, prompted not, as some 
thought, by caprice or love of ostentation, but simply from 
a necessity of the heart, ever to adopt if possible some 
worthy outward expression of an inward and irrepressible 
love. To those who could not understand the love, the 
act of course seemed untimely and exaggerated, an inex- 
cusable waste of valuable property. But the loving Sav- 
iour's glance measured it at once. He saw that only thus 
could a heart yearning to do him loving homage, and 
bursting with pent-up emotion, overflood conventional 
barriers and lay at his feet a fit symbol of undying grati- 



LofC. 



ioo THE ALABASTER BOX 



tude. He therefore rebuked the mercenary comment of 
the disciples, "To what purpose is this waste?" He be- 
stowed upon the trembling woman his approbation, ten- 
derly accepted her offering, and honored her with the 
prophecy that wherever his gospel should be preached this 
act of hers should be told as her perpetual memorial. 

I think, my friends, that through this briefly recorded 
gospel incident, we may obtain, as through a lens, an in- 
sight into a great principle, or method, which largely un- 
derlies the whole divine administration over this world. 
I suspect there is an impulse with most of us critically and 
irreverently at times to put the question in respect to 
many events transpiring under the divine Ruler, "To what 
purpose is this waste?" 

Our fallen minds instinctively estimate things by their 
immediate, visible and utilitarian importance. God's util- 
ity covers eternity as well as time. With him spiritual things 
are the true entities, of which visible things are but the 
fleeting shadows. Hence the continual jar between his 
wisdom and ours. In our presumption we often stand as 
censors over his doings and sanctions, with that sordid 
query of the first disciples. 

Throughout most departments of the divine working in 
this world, as open to our human inspection, we notice 
what seems to us at first sight to be a remarkable prodi- 



THE ALABASTER BOX 101 



gality or waste of causative power as related to the actual 
effects produced. This prodigality of cause, this apparent 
disproportion of means to ends, we must believe is only 
apparent, not real, and arises simply from the peculiar 
angle at which the divine working must ever, from the 
nature of the case, be viewed by finite vision. 

Let us proceed, then, to illustrate the proposition laid 
down, by brief glances into the fields of nature, history and 
divine providence. 

I. From nature. Our theme might receive almost 
indefinite confirmation. How much of waste to hasty, 
sordid view appears throughout the physical creation of 
God? How much of beauty and wealth have been lavished 
upon this world which mere utilitarianism can never ex- 
plain ! In the depths of the ocean what pearly treasures 
are hidden! In unfathomed forests what countless flowers 
arrayed in more than Solomon's glory exhale their fra- 
grance to gladden no human sense ! "Of a thousand seeds," 
says the poet, "God often brings but one to bear." In 
polar waters, in tropic glens, in undelved mines of the 
earth, what minerals, fruits and animals have never yet 
rendered tribute to man, creation's lord ! And yet, as 
though giving did only enrich him, out of the urn of his 
exhaustless bounty does the infinite Father continue to 
flood the world with wealth. 



102 



THE ALABASTER BOX 



Admitting now for a moment to our contemplation the 
light of geology, and turning our eyes back to that long, 
chaotic track of earth's history predating the creation of 
man, what wastes of ages, what mighty fathomless cycles 
of barren time, lie forever engulfed in that interval, span- 
ning from the "beginning," when darkness brooded upon 
the formless void, up to the jubilant morning when Eden 
bloomed and man, a living soul, stood in his Maker's 
image, king of the garden! 

Leaving our own world, and suffering speculation for 
an instant to roam among the constellations above us : 
some twenty-five years ago an eminent English scholar 
launched upon the attention of the scientific world a book 
entitled, "The Plurality of Worlds," wherein he sustained, 
with wide learning and much plausible argument, the 
theory that this earth of ours is the only inhabited orb 
among the stellar lights of heaven; that utter barrenness 
of life reigns through the universe save upon this planet 
created and furnished for the residence of man. This, at 
the time, startling theory of Whewell has been ably en- 
dorsed and reproduced recently by an American author in 
a book entitled "The Arena of the Throne." Professor 
Proctor, probably the foremost astronomical lecturer, main- 
tains, in a modified form, this same Whewellian view, hold- 
ing it to be an indisputable conclusion of the latest re- 



THE ALABASTER BOX 103 

searches in science, that only a very small fraction at 
most of our visible universe can be at this moment the 
abode of conscious life. But whether agreeing with this 
extreme position or not, beyond a question astronomy 
now teaches that there are many worlds in the firma- 
ment sweeping to-day through their tireless orbits, carrying 
no freight of creature life; uninhabited, incandescent or 
blasted orbs of mysterious fate, yet forever hasting on 
their silent journeys, sublimely symboling to our mortal 
vision the inscrutable paths of our God. In our presump- 
tion we may question him of his ways, as through nature, 
geology, astronomy, mystery after mystery unfolds itself 
to our gaze; we may even cry out in pain to the Infinite 
Planner, "To what purpose is this waste?" But no an- 
swer comes to our inquiry. Girded with sovereignty and 
secrecy the All- Wise works his pleasure and before the 
enigmas of his creation, at present, we can only be silent 
and adore. 

II. Leaving now the outside universe and realm of 
matter, let us glance for a moment at the domain of hu- 
man history. And, I ask first, Why must this world of 
ours be kept in weary waiting four thousand years for the 
advent of God's incarnate Son? the very central fact for 
which human history was to exist at all? Why the sacri- 
fice of so many heathen nations before the Day-star of 



io 4 THE ALABASTER BOX 



Redemption dawned upon the race? Why must the whole 
antediluvian world be wasted and only Noah and his 
family preserved? Why must a few insignificant Jewish 
tribes monopolize all inspired history, all heavenly light, 
all divine providence — before w 7 hose miraculous march 
and preservation swarming empires went down to un- 
covenanted graves, almost like Egypt's vermin before the 
breath of the Almighty? Why, we ask, this terrific, oceanic 
waste of man, made in his Maker's image? 

Turning to secular history, hardly less insoluble prob- 
lems confront us. How slow humanity's march toward 
the ideals of civilization ! Through what dark centuries 
has this world groaned and groped toward the light, before 
giving birth to the simplest conception of human rights 
and liberty! 

And how little power has Christianity itself to-day over 
the very world into which God sent his Son ! Take a map 
of our earth and glance over it. What mere points yet il- 
lumined by the truth as it is in Jesus ! what vast, swarming 
regions yet black with error, superstition and cruelty! 
China with her overflowing millions scarce entered by the 
gospel ; India with her population like the sands of the 
desert; unexplored Africa, the vast papal dominions, the 
Mahomedan empire, the benighted isles of the sea ! O God, 
we feel like exclaiming, is thy promise to thy crucified 



THE ALABASTER BOX 105 



Son, that this earth shall be his inheritance? Why, then, 
this delay through the ages? to what purpose this fearful 
waste of souls, forever pressing up Christless to thy judg- 
ment bar? 

Once more, if we turn from nature and the great fixed 
facts of history to contemplate more minutely moral and 
providential events, transpiring under the divine superin- 
tendency, our minds, I am sure, will be no less impressed 
with the wide application of our theme to-day. But 
now, right at the threshold of the great sphere of di- 
vine providence, a little explanatory light, for the first 
time, begins to glimmer along our pathway. In nature 
and in history are great stupendous facts which as yet lie 
under total eclipse to human intelligence. The mind thus 
far has struggled in vain for any clue to their solution. 
But in the kingdom of Providence the case is different. 
We speak, it is true, of "dark providences," "inscrutable 
dealings" of Jehovah with men. Still, I must think that 
every reverent, human intellect carries in its deepest con- 
sciousness an abiding impression that could men rise to 
the point of observation occupied by the Infinite Dis- 
poser of events, his divine ways, even to human appre- 
hension, would at once appear consistent and wise. 

Could we climb to that Omniscient and Eternal Out- 
look, and, far above the refracting atmospheres of earth, 



io6 THE ALABASTER BOX 



compass all factors that enter into the infinite plan, in- 
stantly our caviling would be disarmed, and in speechless 
adoration we should fall before Him and confess that his 
ways were perfect. But, hampered by the senses and ex- 
alting as we do material over spiritual standards, often our 
unbelieving lips still raise that venal question, "To what 
purpose is this waste?" 

Resuming, then, our line of illustration in the field of 
providence, look first, if you please, at any foremost 
nation on this globe, and note the events which, under God, 
have redounded most in the end to that nation's enduring 
prosperity. Have there been events of material success? 
Nay; in almost every instance the very opposite — convul- 
sion, overthrow, terrific waste of temporary and material 
treasures, for the sake of benefits too priceless to be reck- 
oned. Not a single great principle, I am now bold to say, 
moral or political, sits crowned to-day in the world's ac- 
ceptance, that has not reached its coronation through 
bloodshed and revolution. 

Timid, world-loving, commercial men have ever asked, 
"Why this waste?" But when a great idea, a great prin- 
ciple has seized a nation's conscience you may roll back 
the tides of the ocean, but you cannot prevent that na- 
tion's moral upheaval. In such an hour, commerce and 
finance go to the winds. When such crises come, thank 



THE ALABASTER BOX 107 



God, men still see no realities, but justice and heroism 
and honor and sacrifice. And all along the track of his- 
toric civilization, as one after another of the citadels of 
injustice and tyranny have tottered, look you, through 
what Red Seas of blood have the militant nations marched 
to their triumph! So, along every line of reform, illustra- 
tions would crowd upon us of the principle we unfold, viz., 
that the richest harvests of blessing and success ever yet 
garnered for our race have been the ripened fruit of seed 
sown, not in sunshine, but in tears and ignominy and scoff- 
ing and sacrifice. 

For one moment, in passing, notice how the principle 
we contemplate runs through all those events we are wont 
to designate as disasters and calamities. But, rightly un- 
derstood, I must think there is no such thing as disaster 
under the government of God. Is not he supreme? Can 
he be foiled through limited skill or power in adapting 
means to ends? True, at present, our finite vision cannot 
compass all the economics of his working, but if we have 
the eye of filial sagacity we can understand, even now, in 
part. How many of what are called fearful accidents, over- 
whelming misfortunes, are made immediately and con- 
spicuously by the divine Hand to minister an almost in- 
finitely wider profit to society! In our imperfect speech 
we call it "overruling" the event "for good." But in my 



io8 THE ALABASTER BOX 



judgment it is not "overruling," or "underruling" — simply 
the event working out its own normal results, only through 
channels and on planes deeper down and higher up than 
our material philosophy can grasp. We underrate moral 
forces ; God is ever exalting them. Misfortune happens 
to an individual, but in the way of warning and' experience, 
how often the misfortune of one is the salvation of thou- 
sands! A ship strikes a sunken reef and goes down at 
sea, but a beacon light is reared, and for centuries after 
a million vessels, freighted with buoyant life, shun the 
rock on which the fated one perished. A city is laid in 
ashes, but in the light of that one tremendous conflagra- 
tion, the architecture of Christendom is reconstructed. 
In a fearful railroad accident scores of lives are sacrificed, 
a thrill of horror goes through the land, but thereafter 
every switch, every signal from ocean to ocean, is more 
carefully tended, every bridge reinspected, rebolted and 
rebuttressed, ten thousand engineers are more lynx-eyed, 
millions of rolling palaces are more wisely fabricated. Who 
shall estimate, through scores of years, the world over, 
the preservative, precautionary effect of that one accident 
upon the great aggregate of human locomotive security? 
Of course I have time but to hint at this branch of my 
subject. But who will now undertake to say that a won- 
derful, compensatory principle of beneficent sacrifice does 



THE ALABASTER BOX 109 



not underlie the whole phenomena of so-called calamitous 
providences in our world? 

Led by our text to turn our thoughts more directly to 
the sphere of religious consecration to the work and honor 
of Christ, how imperfectly, my brethren, do we often judge 
of Christian service in this world of ours! how apt to 
speak of this and that costly oblation or personal instru- 
mentality as futile and wasted in the vineyard of the 
Lord ! But Christ rebukes such dimness of vision as in 
his first disciples. He is ever showing us by his divine 
and providential benedictions that no sincere heart offer- 
ing to him can be wasted. Uncalculating and sacrificial 
fidelity from the beginning has been the mightiest motor- 
force in his kingdom. Wise, judicious, mammon-loving 
men have ever deprecated such devotion as an unwise 
and extravagant expenditure of strength and health and 
fortune and life. But, mark you, the men each age has 
called its dreamers, fanatics and spiritual spendthrifts, in 
the next age have been the kingly names of history. 
God is teaching every generation the great truth that the 
wastes and failures of earth are forever fructifying into 
heaven's proudest victories. Whose are the brightest 
names to-day on the honor-roll of the Church — names now 
watchwords of power? In almost every instance in their 
own time, men of failure, large portions of whose lives, in 



no THE ALABASTER BOX 



contemporary estimation, were wasted, exiled, martyred 
men, or men falling early, heartbroken under the strife, — 
but in the school of scorn and suffering learning the se- 
cret of eternal fame. 

Calvin's matchless intellect, come down to later times, 
was born of exile. Luther's titanic strength to shake Ger- 
many with the Reformation was slowly acquired, you will 
recall, during wasted years within the walls of a papal 
monastery. John Knox, Scotland's dauntless reformer, 
was a sad and exiled wanderer in foreign climes, until past 
fifty years of age. To silence the preaching of John Bun- 
yan, English prelates thrust him into a Bedford prison. 
For twelve years friends mourned his shining talents as 
lost. And yet, but for English persecution and Bedford 
jail, John Bunyan had never become a glorious dreamer, 
giving to the world his "Pilgrim's Progress," next to the 
English Bible, for three centuries, the most potent book 
in our language. We see not as the Master and he knows 
best how to use the gifts of his servants. A young man 
of shining qualities of mind and heart left an English uni- 
versity to give his splendid talents to the heathen. Ad- 
miring and ambitious friends remonstrated, but in vain. 
Fired with irrepressible love for the Saviour, he could not 
withhold the costliest offering he could bring. He went 
a missionary to India. A victim of overwork and a tropi- 



THE ALABASTER BOX in 

cal climate, he laid down his life at thirty-two, and died 
without the knowledge, at his death, of a single heathen 
soul being converted to Christ through his labors. All 
the world exclaimed, What a waste ! My friends, did Henry 
Martyn really waste his life? Oh, short-sighted philos- 
ophy of Christian disciples! By that one unhesitating, 
magnificent self-immolation Henry Martyn generated a 
power for Christian missions, which a hundred lives 
lengthened to threescore years and ten of ordinary serv- 
ice could not have produced. In a million Christian 
hearts to-day his name is a perpetual inspiration. On 
every heathen shore his memory is sainted. At his lonely 
station, a toiling, weary, disheartened missionary of the 
cross to-day but thinks as he toils of Henry Martyn, 
and plies with new zeal and courage his work for Christ. 

Recall again those dying words of eloquent Dudley 
Tyng to his father: "Stand up for Jesus!" and tell me, if 
you can, what those words have done since they were 
spoken for God ! Like a bugle blast from mountain peak 
to mountain peak, they have been caught up, until across 
a continent a whole generation of Christian workers have 
marched beneath them as a very battle-cry of victory! 
Was not Dudley Tyng mightier in his death than in his 
life? And there are those who speak of One, whose sacred 
name I now feel it almost irreverent to link with human 



ii2 THE ALABASTER BOX 



examples, whose advent to our world must ever stand 
alone in mysterious historic grandeur — the divinely be- 
gotten, the Crucified One. There are those who speak 
of the world's Saviour as though his redemptive power over 
the race was in his life and not in his death. No, my 
friends, a thousand times, no! Not for a brief, earthly 
ministry did God's Son leave his Father's throne! If that 
were all, what a tragedy indeed shadowed the noonday 
brow of Calvary ! 

But hear heaven's interpretation of that scene! "In 
the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by 
the sacrifice of himself!'' And that, beloved, is the phil- 
osophy of the atonement. Standing now at length on this 
height of our argument and looking back all the way we 
have come, suffer me now to say, for one, I believe that 
light will yet dawn upon that great primal enigma of per- 
mitted evil in this fallen world of ours. I believe that 
those great, gigantic wastes in human history we have 
contemplated, stretching all through the past, will one day 
be radiant with a divine explanation. I believe the time 
will come when to human minds every truth of Scripture, 
every mysterious dispensation of the divine Hand will 
stand forth self-revealing and self-justifying in the merid- 
ian light of eternity. And that greatest of all enigmas, 
clouding futurity like a pall, overtopping every other Scrip- 



THE ALABASTER BOX 113 

tural truth with black and staggering mystery; that great 
definite, unmistakable revelation of God's Bible — the eter- 
nal perdition of the Christless, oh, why is this truth re- 
vealed to us? "O beneficent Father, to what purpose," 
we cry, "the fearful, endless waste?" In vain our question 
cleaves the air and echoes' back from the eternal silence. 
Shall we then give up our trust? Have we journeyed thus 
far victoriously all along the highway of the divine ad- 
ministration only to surrender our faith at the gateway 
of this last towering enigma? No, my friends, let us be- 
lieve to the end. God is righteous, and through eternity 
he will be righteous still. In some way — we know it, — in 
some way will yet be revealed to his wondering and ador- 
ing children that a vast and beneficent sacrificial philos- 
ophy underlies even the final transcendent mystery of hell 
itself. 

Let two or three brief remarks, in the way of applica- 
tion, conclude the subject. And first, we see how com- 
pletely in our ordinary judgment we mistake the very cen- 
tral policy of the divine administration. In our common 
estimates we invert, precisely, the rule by which God 
chiefly works throughout his empire. We call that weak- 
ness which God calls strength. We call that futility and 
misapplication which he reckons the highest success. We 
designate those very phenomena as failures and wastes 



THE ALABASTER BOX 



which in God's economy are the most potent forces em- 
ployed. Blindly and sensuously we think that only those 
causes can be efficient which, without friction, run along 
in the visible grooves of established method and order and 
prosperity; and that all interruptions of this order are a 
loss of power. But, my friends, God works by interrup- 
tion. The mightiest in his universe are ever achieved by 
interruption. When he would signally bless men and 
produce a far-reaching and stupendous effect of benefi- 
cence, through all history he has done it by interposition, 
by cross-purposes, by transcending, ordinary methods ; in 
one word, by the principle of sacrifice. 

Again a personal lesson, my fellow believers, of price- 
less moment and comfort, is brought to you and to me 
to-day. It is this : no such thing is possible as misfortune 
or disaster to a Christ and Spirit-sealed child of God. Xo 
such thing is possible as wasted talent to one, all of whose 
talents have been laid at the feet of Christ. And yet how 
slow of heart to believe ! How often do we murmur at life's 
allotments and think in our case, at least, that the post of 
earthly duty has been misjudged! How prone to harbor 
the repining thought that were it not for this or that en- 
cumbrance or infirmity or "thorn in the flesh," our use- 
fulness in the Masters vineyard would be greatly increased ! 
Looking back over the past, how apt we are to say to our- 



THE ALABASTER BOX 115 



selves, "Were it not for that mistake, that decision, that one 
irretrievable failure, that black hiatus of years in my life's 
early history! or, were it not for this sickness, these 
cares, this crushing life-burden I now carry, I might do 
valiant and effective work for my Lord !" O Christian dis- 
ciples, you who think and talk thus, how sadly and totally 
do you misapprehend even yet the true source of your spir- 
itual power! Why are we so blind? Why will we never 
learn from God's Word, from providence, from the great 
book of history itself, that the way to the crown is ever 
by the cross! that the path to glory lies evermore 
through the blood-tracked path of sacrifice! and that from 
the wastes of the world, not the successes of earth, are 
now waving heaven's golden harvests! 

Finally, beloved friends, fain would I leave indelibly on 
every heart, as I close, the crowning lesson of my subject 
— be not penurious with Christ ! When the early disciples 
saw the costly oblation of the loving Mary poured out at 
Jesus' feet, they meanly asked, "Why was not this oint- 
ment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" 
Oh, detestable parsimony! Oh, weak-minded faith of the 
disciples! Oh, how could those who had walked so long 
with the Master, understand as yet so faintly the finance 
of heaven? Brethren, while rebuking their unbelief, shall 
we imitate their avarice? Oh, will not we be generous and 



n6 THE ALABASTER BOX 



uncalculating with Him who bought us with his own 
blood? Like Mary, let us bring our costliest gifts, our 
stored alabaster-boxes of priceless treasure and break 
them at his pierced feet! Have you wealth, my brother, 
oh, lavish it upon Christ ! Above every other mistake, let 
us shun the mistake of penny-wise and pound-foolish in 
our religious liberality. Is there any tender, generous, 
glorious sacrifice we can make to-day for our Saviour? 
Then let us not linger, for not he, but we are now has- 
tening to our burial. But every sacrifice, remember, will 
be a memorial to- our eternal praise; every cross borne 
for him, a scepter there of endless dominion; every tear 
a diamond in the imperishable crown; and when at last 
at his feet on the heavenly plains, when the last enemy is 
destroyed, the Son shall yield his mediatorial reign to the 
Father, then from the lips of Jesus himself shall we learn 
the great and wondrous depths of that divine "Philosophy 
of Sacrifice" we have now feebly attempted to penetrate. 
Then shall we see with undimmed and seraphic vision how 
it is that all the wastes and evils and sufferings of this mor- 
tal life have only culminated at last in the perfect joy of 
heaven. 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

"Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." — Matt. 21 : 28. 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 



"And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily 
prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, 
helps, governments, diversities of tongues. Are all apostles? are 
all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles? Have 
all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? 
But covet earnestly the best gifts." 

— i Cor. 12: 28-31. 

In this paragraph I have now read from the First Epis- 
tle to the Corinthians, is incidentally disclosed the fact, 
that upon the early primitive Church was bestowed by 
the Divine Spirit certain miraculous powers, superinduced 
probably upon the natural gifts of individuals, which pow- 
ers in their miraculous character have now passed away, 
while the diversity of natural gifts remains, as marked and 
wide as in the apostolic days. Men no longer supernat- 
urally speak in foreign languages. They no longer have 
power miraculously to heal the sick or to interpret an 
unknown tongue. But just as much now as in the time of 
Paul there are different offices in the Christian Church, dif- 
ferent duties to be performed, different gifts to be em- 
ployed, and a personal account to be rendered by all to 
the Church's divine Head. It is true now that "there are 
diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit," and "as the body 



120 WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 



is one, and hath many members, and all the members of 
that one body, being many, are one body," so also is it 
with the Church of Christ. There are many members 
baptized by the same Spirit into one Body, the Lord. 

Uniting, then, these two passages of Scripture, the one 
from the mouth of Christ, and the other from the writ- 
ings of Paul, I wish to ask attention at this time to two 
simple propositions, which, it seems to me, need not much 
more than a plain statement before any Christian church 
of this day, to be self-enforcing and self-convincing. 

First, it is one of the plainest truths taught in the whole 
Bible, that it is the duty of every professing follower of 
Christ, to work. If there is any point about which it 
would seem almost a waste of words to enter upon serious 
argument to establish, it is certainly the fact that it is the 
duty of every one who recognizes Jesus Christ as Lord and 
Master to work for his glory and honor. 

My second proposition, also plainly taught, I think, by 
the Scriptures, is this : that the regenerative Christian work 
required to be done in this world for Christ is to be de- 
volved not upon a few isolated Christians, but is the work 
of the church itself, as an organized body of believers. 

That the duty of personal service and labor is the first 
step and the foundation of Christian discipleship certainly 
need not detain us but a moment at this time. Personal 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 121 



"service" lies at the bottom of gospel teaching - . It is the 
radical idea in the word "religion." There really can be 
no greater solecism in language than the phrase an "idle 
Christian." 

Christ's words in nearly every case, to those who sought 
his discipleship, were, "Follow me." Forsake your ease, 
your friends, your self-indulgence; take up the cross and 
follow me. And by his parables, his similes, his illustra- 
tions through every variety of metaphor, he is continually 
enforcing the great key-thought of service and personal 
dedication to himself. He tells his disciples that by their 
fruits they are to judge men's hearts. He points them to 
the "barren fig-tree" as a vivid emblem of an irreligious life, 
and by the figure of a "vineyard" and its laborers, a mas- 
ter and his stewards, a lord and his servants, he inculcates 
the same lesson of consecration. In that parable of the 
"talents," more successfully and graphically, perhaps, than 
in any other passage, does he bring definitely into view 
the great law of universal accountability and the guilt of an 
idle, fruitless life. "Then he which had received the one 
talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee, etc." — Matt. 
25:24. 

But without further remark, I shall now assume that all 
who hear me to-day, connected with the visible Church of 
Christ, are ready to admit, theoretically at least, that service 



122 WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 



is one of the most radical ideas of Christian teaching. 
But while Christians, most Christians at this day, con- 
nected by profession with the church, are willing to ac- 
knowledge, abstractly, the claims of the Saviour upon them 
for personal labor, yet practically seem in strange igno- 
rance of what are the Scriptural functions of the church as 
an undivided body; what is the relation of fellow members 
to each other? and of all to Christ? Many persons seem 
not to consider that there is any more organic unity to a 
Christian church than there is to a company of travelers, 
who by chance meet on any day at the same station from 
North, South, East and West and accidentally jump aboard 
the same train to ride to a neighboring city. Many seem 
to think the church is a kind of boat, where all who take 
passage are only required and expected to sit with 
decorous quietness while the minister, perhaps aided by 
his deacons, rows them to heaven. Now this was not, I 
think, the apostolic idea. 

The Bible uses no imagery indicating a more vital and 
consolidating union than that which subsists between be- 
lievers united in the same church. The apostle says to the 
church at Corinth, "Ye are the body of Christ." There 
should therefore be no schism in the body. "God hath 
tempered the body together . . . that the members should 
have the same care one for another." Just as in the 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 123 



human body the same sensitive, all-uniting life-principle 
runs through the frame, linking limbs, organs and facul- 
ties in mysterious loyalty to one administrating human 
soul, so that the whole brotherhood of members suffer or 
rejoice together, so in the church-body of Christ there 
is an organic spiritual unity — not a chance companionship 
of professing believers. 

And now the apostle teaches that this peculiar unity of 
the Christian Church is organic, not for mere outward 
grace and beauty, but to make the Church an instrument 
of the highest possible spiritual efficiency in the great vine- 
yard of Christ. It is beautifying indeed to look upon an 
army, filed in long and gleaming lines, with burnished 
weapons and waving plumes, upon a parade ground; to 
watch their perfect movements, their swift, exact evolu- 
tions at the word of command. But all these rapid and 
combined movements, beautiful as they are, the fruit of 
months of patient drill, we should hardly think worth their 
cost, did we not know that in military matters, union means 
simply efficiency, and that these banded lines and unwav- 
ering columns shall at length carry confusion and conster- 
nation into the face of the enemy. So with the Church. 
The Church's union is designed simply to be the Church's 
strength. And as in war the most skilfully combined 
forces carry the day, so the Church was meant to be an 



I2 4 WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

organically combined, spiritual body, for the most speedy 
and perfect subjugation of this sinful world. The Church's 
union, then, is the Church's strength, and never was an in- 
strument constructed in which every part was so meant to 
help every other part and the whole, without friction — work 
skilfully and jointly together for the one end to be accom- 
plished. The Church was designed by Christ, so far as 
sanctified human nature can serve such an end, to be- 
come a perfect working instrumentality for the ultimate 
regeneration of our race. And in this work every part is 
indispensable. The Church is a complex instrument. It 
is a combined work, to be portioned where responsibility 
cannot be shifted from one to another. Every member 
has his function, his gifts, his apportioned duty, for which 
he must render personal account. In this united labor, 
"the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of 
thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of 
you. Nay, much more those members of the body, which 
seem to be more feeble, are necessary," — just as necessary 
and indispensable as the more ostentatious members. 
And if any member of Christ's body shirks his appointed 
duty, leaving it undone because he claims that his position 
is inferior or his talents more limited, he assumes a terrible 
responsibility. Let him remember the doom of him who 
cowardly hid his one talent. "Cast ye the unprofitable 
servant into outer darkness." 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 125 



I think, then, it will now be admitted, not only that 
every Christian owes a personal dedication to Christ, but 
that the Church was designed in superhuman wisdom by 
Christ, to be an organized institution for united and co- 
operating Christian labor in the field of the world, in which 
Christians are to hold a vital, supplemental relation to each 
other, having a joint work to perform, varied gifts with 
which to perform it, and a common responsibility to meet. 

If I am right in this opinion, I wish now to base upon 
it a few remarks. 

And first, if this theory of the Church I have propounded 
is the Scriptural one, it was never designed by Christ that 
a small fractional number in every church of his should 
do all the work while the great mass of members remain 
idle, useless and irresponsible. If the church has, as the 
apostle taught, a united, organic and sympathetic reli- 
gious life, then a few of the functions will not work with 
proper health, if the body mainly is suffering spiritual pa- 
ralysis. So far as we can glean from the New Testament 
writings, I think it beyond question that the members of 
the apostolic churches, much more than we of modern 
times, carried into successful practice the idea of varied 
and widely cooperating Christian labor, and in organized 
cooperation looked for success. They recognized the fact, 
that Christ when he ascended instituted a system of work- 



126 WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 



ing complex forces in the Church he left behind him; that 
he gave apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastors and 
teachers for the edifying of the body of Christ, till all 
should ''come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowl- 
edge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man." The early 
Church by the exercise of its varied personal gifts, by co- 
ordinate systematic methods, through multiform channels 
of labor, by helps, governments, diversities of tongues, 
sought to do the great work of Christian edification im- 
posed upon it by the Master. This work was not left for 
one class of men to do. Labor was wisely distributed, and 
thus the principle of combination, corporate effort, asso- 
ciated labor became a lever of tremendous power in the 
Church — just as it always is in any secular undertaking. 
Business men of sagacious enterprise understand this; 
politicians understand it; military leaders base all their 
operations upon it. Why, then, should not the "children 
of light" be as wise in their generation as the children of 
this world? It is as ruinous in practical working as it is 
unscriptural in doctrine, for the Church in our day to ig- 
nore, as I think it is tempted to do to a fatal extent, the 
great principle of corporate effort, while it devolves the 
labor of Christian edification almost entirely upon the 
so called "ordained ministry" of the Church. I do not be- 
lieve, my friends, that there is any one body of men in 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 127 



the church, I care not how roundly educated, how richly 
crowned with intellectual power, how thoroughly versed in 
heart piety, that alone is adequate to the great work. The 
brain or heart in the human system could no more act ef- 
fectively without assistance from the other functions and 
organs of the body, than a minister, however endowed, can 
work to purpose without the help of his church. 

The subject would now properly open in various direc- 
tions and might suggest several spheres in which the 
church ought to* exert a corporate influence for Christ. I 
might speak of the united social work devolved upon the 
church in visitation and the like. I might speak upon the 
topic of lay-evangelization — a subject which I think de- 
serves a profounder attention than it has yet received. I 
might refer to missionary organization and the like, but 
my theme to-day, I think, leads more directly to a consid- 
eration of the church as a self-edifying body containing in 
itself functions of self-nutriment and fitted through all its 
parts to become a Christian instrumentality in the local 
community where Christ has placed it. And I do not be- 
lieve that in any age of the Church has God ever opened 
up to the eyes of his people, lying more in the very path- 
way of providence, a sphere of more momentous duty, than 
he has by developing in these modern times the great sys- 
tem and institution of the Sunday-school. The hand of 



128 WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 



God is in its rise and his signal blessing has been upon its 
progress ; and yet I believe, with all the wonderful advance 
which has been made, especially in our large cities within 
the last ten years, the whole system of Sunday-schools is 
yet in its infancy as a potential power in the Church. 

A system can hardly be conceived, if its ideal should be 
carried out, more perfectly adapted to collect and condense 
into one focus of influence all the varied gifts, all the 
combined knowledge, all the complex experience, all the 
latent zeal, piety and power of a professing Christian 
church. 

You will not suspect me of any desire to undervalue the 
office of the Christian ministry. I believe it instituted of 
Christ and the noblest post of work to which God calls a 
mortal man. And yet I believe a more ruinous error can- 
not take root in the mind than the belief that the preacher 
of the gospel is to do the chief work of Christian edifica- 
tion in any church of Jesus Christ. If any church expects 
to come to the unity of the faith and to the fulness of the 
stature of Christ through the influence of the ministry 
alone, I think it will in the end reap the bitter fruit of its 
error. 

I might mention three things which render such a result, 
from the ministry alone, impossible. In the first place, no 
one man has the intellectual endowment for such a mighty 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 129 



task. There is not more variety in human faces and human 
bodies than there is in human minds. The minds of men 
all differ, and it would be a serious misfortune, in my 
opinion, for any church to become the exact counterpart 
and mirror of any one minister's mind. God confers dif- 
ferent gifts. One man is supereminently speculative, doc- 
trinal in his lines of thought. Another man's mind takes 
a practical view of every subject. One is exegetical, illus- 
trative and synthetic in his methods of preaching; another 
is abstract and analytical; one man has the "gift of 
tongues," another of teaching, another of administration; 
on another the executive faculty is conferred in large 
measure; but the gifts of all men differ. 

Again, no one man has the complete Christian experi- 
ence needed for the perfect edification of an entire Chris- 
tian church. Piety, even when genuine and deep, has all 
varieties of type. The sunlight playing over the face of 
a landscape does not produce greater extremes and diver- 
sities of color than does God's grace shining upon differ- 
ent human temperaments, producing different phases of 
religious experience. There is indeed a radical sameness 
at the bottom in Christian character, but there is marked 
diversity with the same Spirit; and no one weak heart of 
man can reflect, full-orbed, all the grace and glory of 
Christ's sanctifying religion. 



130 WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

But a third inability which every public preacher sorely 
feels in himself, to do the whole work of religious evan- 
gelization required by his people, lies in the impossibility 
of securing that intimate, extended and protracted personal 
contact with all, needed for such a result. Here a division 
of Christian labor is absolutely indispensable. Had a min- 
ister all the tact, discernment and knowledge of human 
nature needed for such a varied work, no one man is gifted 
with powers of ubiquity. And just as in early times, God 
provided for the limitations of individual power and for 
the exigencies of his Church by the conferment of miracu- 
lous and widely multiplied offices so now, in his provi- 
dence, he has raised up the Sunday-school to aid and to 
supplement the Christian pulpit, and to become a medium 
through which the Church shall be able to* preserve its 
complex and organic spiritual power. 

But there are objections to the Sunday-school. It re- 
quires, say some, hard work. Of course it does. Is there 
any Christian who thinks he can get to heaven without 
working at all for Christ? If there is he will find that the 
Bible will give him little solace in his undertaking. 

But, it is said again, "teaching" is a peculiar gift. I 
acknowledge it a rare and peculiar gift, and for that very 
reason some who hear me to-day should ask themselves 
prayerfully the question if they are not burying in a nap- 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 131 



kin a rare talent for which the Master is now calling. By- 
no means is it education, eloquence or learning, that in- 
variably confers the gift of teaching. It is a singular, price- 
less talent resting upon some minds like a crown. Indeed, 
a man may have the gift of prophecy; he may speak, if 
you please, with the tongues of men and of angels and 
understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and yet have 
no power skilfully to teach. There are a score of persons 
in this congregation, male and female, at whose feet, for 
my own part, I would sit with the most reverent humility 
in this shining power God has given them, magnetically 
and soulfully to impart instruction to other minds. Are 
such who hear me prepared to give an account of their 
stewardship? 

But say some, "I would be willing to teach in the Sun- 
day-school, but I am no theologian; I am not educated; I 
am not able to explain satisfactorily the mysteries of the 
Bible." All I can say to you is, that in this respect you 
are just where your minister is. When we come to the 
great mysteries of religion and God's infinite counsels, 
learned or unlearned, we are on a level. We stand to- 
gether in our littleness at the base of giant mountains 
whose mighty peaks are hidden in the sky. In these mat- 
ters we must wait the light of eternity. Our wisdom now 
is to know our ignorance. The spirit with which to ap- 



132 WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 



proach God's Word is not the spirit of a philosopher, but 
the spirit of a little child, — a humble, believing and recep- 
tive disposition — and with the prayer of young Samuel in 
the heart, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." With 
ordinary intelligence, with the helps to Biblical study, ac- 
cessible to all with a little effort, and with a heart loving 
God's truth and the Saviour who died for our ransom, 
very few can plead total intellectual disqualification for 
some positions of work in the great vineyard of the Sun- 
day-school. If any do, however, feel absolute disqualifica- 
tion, the very best way, let me say to them, to equip their 
own minds with priceless knowledge, is to set about the 
attempt patiently and instruct others. 

And now this is the place, I think, for me to announce 
what I consider the distinctive advantage of the Sunday- 
school system of instruction. It affords opportunity for 
mutual study and investigation of God's Word. The pul- 
pit does not admit of this. Every one knows how much 
more vividly any mind grasps a subject when that mind is 
an active participant in the investigation, and not a mere 
passive listener to the thoughts of others. In mutual study, 
in discussion, mind sharpens mind, light flashes upon a 
point from a score of different minds, and therefore from a 
score of different angles; objections and suggestions are 
evoked and considered with a breadth and thoroughness 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 133 



which no one mind possibly could attain. The greatest 
thinkers the world has seen have ever acknowledged the 
value of this collision of intellects. Locke, the great English 
metaphysician, asserted that nine things out of ten of all 
that he knew he had learned in conversation with others. 
And an English statesman said that he never conversed 
with a man so illiterate and uneducated that he was not able 
to carry away from the interview some new idea. Now this, 
all can see, is the great advantage gained in the mutual 
study of the Bible. No two minds look at a subject in 
just the same way. No two heart experiences are pre- 
cisely the same. There is no individual in this congrega- 
tion, I may believe not one, but has it in his or her abil- 
ity to add something either of head or heart which no 
other person can add to the common stock of mental and 
Scriptural knowledge which it is the object of the Sunday- 
school to evoke. 

My hearer, then, if you recognize Christian obligation, 
let me ask, Have you weighed this matter as you ought? 
If, then, you are not willing to call yourselves distinctively 
"teachers/' become mutual teachers; form classes of joint 
study of God's blessed Book, where each shall bring his 
quotum, however humble, of knowledge, suggestion or ex- 
perience to bless the hearts and quicken the faith of others. 
Indeed, I am firmly convinced that an ideal Sunday-school 



I 



134 WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

is one coextensive with the worshiping congregation ; that 
it should embrace without exception old and young — all 
who visit for worship the house of God on the Sabbath 
day. It may be, brethren, the hour is not yet ripe for such 
a consummation in our midst, but toward it let us labor. 
One thing I venture to say to all: if any of this congre- 
gation who have stood aloof will enter with hearty coop- 
eration into this great work, they will assure me here- 
after that of all the privileges of holy time, there is none 
which for religious profit, pleasure and usefulness they 
set a higher value upon, than the season socially employed 
in the study of God's Word in the Sunday-school. 

But I must pause at the very threshold of my subject. 
A single discourse permits us only to come up to the edge 
of the field, look out upon the waving grain, white for the 
harvest, and hear Christ's call to us all to enter in and 
labor. Many arguments at this time for such labor I 
must leave unspoken. I desired to speak at least for a 
moment of the position — a position which it seems to me 
angels might envy — which a Sunday-school teacher oc- 
cupies toward his pupils for their immediate conversion to 
Christ. Oh, if any Christian heart yearns to work for 
Jesus, what a field is here! To gather about you souls in 
such intimate, tender relationship, and feed them with the 
"bread of life!" to know your pupils intimately, to feel a 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 135 



responsibility for them, to be able to carry them in the 
arms of faith, individually, in wrestling prayer to the feet 
of the loving Saviour! Oh, the social, moulding power 
over mind and destiny which only the mathematics of 
eternity shall be able fully to estimate! Christians of this 
church, will you then heed to-day the Saviour's voice, "Go 
work in my vineyard"? The vineyard is right around you; 
the work is fully in your sight; the harvest is great, but, 
alas, the laborers are few! Within a stone's throw of this 
building where we speak there are hundreds who ought 
to be connected with the Sabbath-school, who now are 
desecrating the Day of God, perishing for lack of knowl- 
edge and proper Biblical instruction, and who, I believe, 
with simply a united and earnest fidelity on the part of 
those who wear the badge of Christian discipleship, might 
be gathered into the fold of the Sunday-school. Christian 
professor, will you look out into this field? Will you ask 
yourself the question, "Does Christ address me in his provi- 
dence, when he says, 'Go work to-day in my vineyard' ?" 
Young men of this church and congregation, young 
women, will you take hold of this work? You of middle 
life, are you too old to lend a hand to this glorious crusade 
against the kingdom of darkness? Are any here too aged 
to profit by this mutual study of God's Word? Will you, 
then, lend your influence, old and young, by your per- 



136 WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 

sonal presence in the Sunday-school as teachers, as pu- 
pils, or as students together of the oracles of God in the 
attempt to raise the Sunday-school connected with this 
church to the position of glorious and organized use- 
fulness which it ought to occupy in the house of God? 
Will you come? It is a great work and all are needed 
for its performance. As you love, then, Christian friends, 
the cause which the Redeemer loved, and desire to see 
his Church upon earth built up after the similitude of a 
glorious, spiritual temple, bring out your tools one and 
all, you who have laid them aside to rust, and engage in 
this magnificent undertaking. 

Each one of you may lay a "living stone," or shape a 
human character, which will shine to the Saviour's praise 
through eternity. Out of sight comparatively, obscure and 
unblazoned, your work may now be, but in the Revealing 
Day you shall sit and your fidelity shall be heralded 
through the empire of heaven ! Come forth, then, one and 
all, and help build the temple of Christ, though no sound 
of hammer or axe rings through its mystic walls. Silently 
and steadily the glorious work progresses and blessed are 
they who have part in the rearing. And when He who 
laid the foundation, who is himself the Corner Stone, shall 
at length bring the edifice to completion ; when at length 
the head-stone of the mighty structure shall be brought 



WORKING IN THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL 137 



forth, while heaven's all ransomed ones shout, "Grace, 
grace, unto it !" then they who have been faithful shall be 
pillars in the temple. Then they who have been wise shall 
shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they who 
have turned many to righteousness as the stars forever 
and ever. 



ENTERING INTO REST 

'For we which have believed do enter into rest." — Heb. 4 : 3. 



ENTERING INTO REST 



Some of the most precious Bible truths can be unlocked 
to our apprehension only with the key of our every-day 
experience. The Bible indeed is full of images, borrowing 
all their vividness and power from this source. For ex- 
ample, had we no personal experience of the sensations of 
hunger or thirst, what appropriate meaning could we at- 
tach to the beautiful language of inspiration, symbolizing 
Christ to our spiritual need as the "bread of life" for hun- 
gry souls, and the well of living waters, of which if a man 
drink he shall never thirst? Or what true appreciation 
could any Bible reader have of that sweet, oft-recurring 
Scripture emblem, rest, who had never known toil, fatigue, 
mental disquiet and earthly vicissitude, or had never worn 
the galling yoke of fear, anxiety and sin? 

In this fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that 
glorious rest-chapter of the Bible, the apostle, you observe, 
is addressing the posterity of those who came out of Egypt 
under Moses ; and the Hebrews to whom Paul writes, like 
their ancestors, were an isolated and nomadic people. In 
whatever country their lot was cast, they were regarded 
ever as foreigners and strangers, having no abiding city. 



142 ENTERING INTO REST 



And to me there seems a divine intention in this home- 
less history of the Hebrew nation. God's chosen people, 
and the special organ of his written revelation to mankind, 
were homeless, that he might impress vividly upon their 
hearts and imaginations, by the power of contrast, the glo- 
rious stability and the unchanging repose of the heavenly 
future. 

What a rich and soul-satisfying fulness of meaning, 
then, must have been contained in this word, rest, to a 
Hebrew mind! For nearly three centuries as a nation 
ground down under Egyptian taskmasters ; by divine mir- 
acle escaping; for forty years wandering through pathless 
deserts, marching and countermarching; distracted with 
inward revolt and foreign attack, until at last from Pisgah's 
summit the promised Canaan burst upon their vision — what 
a history, we should say, to burn ineffaceably into the na- 
tional Hebrew mind the full meaning of rest! and through 
the earthly symbol the blessedness of the heavenly Canaan 
beyond! 

But, my friends, who of mortal parentage and of earthly 
tuition has gained no insight through personal experience 
into the hidden meaning and incomparable consolation of 
this Scriptural emblem? 'Thou hast made us for thyself, 
O God," said St. Augustine, forty generations ago, out of 
the depths of his own battle-worn spirit, "and our souls are 



ENTERING INTO REST 143 

restless till they find rest in thee." In heaven's heraldry 
we are sons and heirs of immortality and only immortality 
can fully satisfy us. But by faith we may anticipate our 
future inheritance. Mark now the peculiar expression in 
my text: "For we which have believed," says the apostle, 
"do enter into rest" Not shall, but do. The present tense. 
Paul's great and joyous affirmation now is, that Christians 
inherit a present salvation as well as a future, at once re- 
ceiving instalment and foretaste of heaven, their final re- 
ward. If, my friends, we have truly believed in Christ and 
have put our souls into his gracious keeping, then do we 
enter into rest. 

Let me invite you, then, at this time, to note in a few 
particulars how faith gives to the Christian present rest. 

First, it gives rest to his reason. By faith, the Christian 
gains intellectual repose. It is a true saying, I think, that 
"he who has never doubted, has never half believed." For 
an intellect of any capacity to be born into a world like 
this, and confront, one after another, the stupendous prob- 
lems of existence, and yet never to have known the tor- 
tures of doubt, is something to me, I confess to you, in- 
comprehensible. This world in which we live is full of 
mysteries and no theologian, worthy the name, for an in- 
stant can deny it. How, then, you ask me, does faith rid 
the human reason of mystery? In other words, how does 



144 ENTERING INTO REST 



the Bible take mystery out of the world? I answer you 
candidly, it does not take mystery out of the world or out 
of the universe. Now many persons make a singular mis- 
take, it seems to me, as to what the Bible really undertakes 
and professes to do for the human intellect. 

Irreligious and skeptical men ask me, How do you meet 
this objection and that? How do you settle this and that 
problem in science? How do you reconcile this and that 
enigma in history? How do you explain "election"? How 
do you interpret the flood? What do you do with infants 
and the ungospelized heathen? How do you reconcile it 
that only a few are finally to be saved? etc. Now let me 
say, with all emphasis, that the Bible, in my judgment, un- 
dertakes to solve for mankind not a single scientific, his- 
toric or metaphysical difficulty, for the sake of solving that 
difficulty. Christ in all his ministry never opened his mouth 
to explode a single objection brought against his religion 
in the way of science or philosophy. There are a thousand 
mysteries to which the Bible makes no allusion whatever 
and almost countless others to which it only incidentally 
refers, but without the slightest attempt at solution. 

My friends, the Bible was sent from God to men to teach 
men God's way of human salvation. Man is a lost and 
wretched sinner. The Bible is God's lighthouse to save 
him. But does a lighthouse undertake to illumine the 



ENTERING INTO REST 145 



whole interminable line of seacoast on a dark night? It 
illumines only the mariner's pathway into the harbor, and 
that is enough for all his need. On every side of him, it 
may be, are piled walls of Cimmerian darkness. Above, 
around, beneath, dangers threaten him; but in front and 
just right where he needs it, comes a stream of guiding 
light over the waves, and beyond is the restful, welcoming 
harbor. 

Now what does God's Word do for my intellect as a 
sinner? I am in a stormy sea at night, my reckoning is lost, 
my rigging torn, my masts strained, my ship sinking. As 
I look around there is no hope. On my right, peering 
through the black clouds, are the long, jutting reefs: of the 
Old Testament mysteries; on my left, the roar of God's 
sovereignty and the unfathomable counsels of his provi- 
dence. In the distance I dimly discern the divine Justice, 
like a frowning cliff rising up to destroy me; and lashed 
by furious waves I hear afar the rocks of endless death. 
What can I do? I am palsied with despair. But now, 
turning a headland, suddenly shoots out over the turbulent 
sea, right in my path, the gleam of a friendly light! A 
thousand suns could not be more welcome. Noonday is 
born of midnight, and life of death, and in my joy I shout, 
"Safe! safe! safe! for yonder is the harbor!" I forget the 
mysteries about me. Above the tempest's blast I hear 



146 



ENTERING INTO REST 



now only a calm, sweet voice, "Come unto me and I will 
give you rest." Yonder is the cross! Yonder a shining 
form is walking on the sea ! I catch an outbursting chorus 
from the skies, wafted to my ears through the scattering 
gloom, "Grace, grace, grace for the chief of sinners!'' I 
resolve I will be tortured with doubts no longer. By be- 
lief, I enter into rest. And now trusting all to Jesus, my 
omnipotent Helper, I hear comforting words, "Thou 
knowest not now ; but thou shalt know hereafter." For we 
which have believed do enter into rest. 

But I remark, again, we which have believed, enter into 
present spiritual rest by virtue of Christ presented to our 
souls as a perpetual and abiding Helper and Friend. 

You may in past experience have felt the pardoning 
love of Jesus, and can now go back in memory to that 
never-to-be-forgotten hour, when as your soul lay burdened 
before the cross the suffering Saviour first smiled upon you 
and thrilled your being with a new and ineffable peace ; you 
remember well that transition from darkness to light, from 
despair to hope. Your sin-bruised, Satan-buffeted heart 
then first knew the meaning of rest. But, dear friends, not 
only at the day-dawn of our conversion, not only at the 
birth-hour of our immortal hope, is Christ most precious 
to the soul. 

"If introduced by him our race we have begun V 



ENTERING INTO REST 



147 



more and more to the end shall we need his blessed sacri- 
ficial mediation. It is not enough, it is not enough that 
once we have known the peace of pardon. These erring, 
fallen, guilt-stained souls must know continually his 
cleansing power until presented at last faultless before his 
throne. 

As the Crucified then spoke peace at the first to our de- 
spairing hearts, so each day of the pilgrimage, at morning, 
night and hourly, must we roll off the burden of repeated 
sin at his sacred feet. Oh, how sad, my brethren, would 
be our condition still had we only a dead Christ, had we 
no death-conquering, risen Lord, no sympathizing, com- 
passionate Elder Brother still saying to< us, I am with you 
to the end; to whom we can go carrying each day's burdens 
and sorrows and temptations, and find restful forgiveness 
at his cross! And thus is presented to our faith to-day, 
fellow believers, not only a once crucified Redeemer, but a 
present, human and ever-living Friend and Intercessor in 
the skies. 

Once more, I remark, by faith the Christian enters into 
rest as the object and the subject of God's special provi- 
dential care. For me, my friends, I believe firmly in a 
special providence. I accept heartily the assurance of 
God's Word that, "all things work together for good to 
them that love God." I must believe that He who notes 



148 ENTERING INTO REST 



the sparrow's fall, who numbers the very hairs of our heads, 
who clothes the fields with their wondrous beauty, cannot 
be indifferent to the minutest interests that concern his 
believing child. No earthly history is free from turbulence. 
The most smoothly flowing current of human life, heaven 
so ordained, has its breakers, its storms, at times its whirl- 
pools, when the soul can only lie passive and helpless in the 
hand of superintending Power. There are storms, my 
friends, in every mortal experience, through which no 
human skill can pilot us, and when only by faith in an om- 
nipotent Love we can find repose in the tempest. 

It was my fortune once to experience a most stormy 
ocean passage. For nine days our frail bark breasted a 
succession of gales. Sick, wearied, sleepless on a dark 
night I lay when the storm was at its height. The tempest 
howled around us like a thousand demons. Our ship 
strained and plunged through the billows ; waves rolled over 
us, and occasionally, a heavy sea striking the ship's side 
from stem to stern, through every timber she would stag- 
ger and tremble, like an ox struck with an axe. The heavy 
machinery of the engine played ceaselessly and wearily, 
groaning and creaking with its unwonted labor. A single 
breakage of screw or rivet or piston would have left us at 
the mercy of the storm. A moment's inattention of the 
man at the wheel, or failure to meet each wave at its exact 



ENTERING INTO REST 



angle, would have thrown us into* a trough of the sea, in- 
stantly to founder. As thus at dead of night I lay, in a 
momentary lull of the storm could be heard on deck the 
clear voice of the watchman, at midships, ringing out over 
the desolate sea, upon the midnight air, above the tempest's 
roar, "All 's well." The man at the forecastle echoed the 
signal, and the man at the wheel caught up the cry "All 's 
well." As in those helpless hours I listened, I thought if 
confidence in human skill, and in unsleeping human vigil- 
ance, could thus cradle the mind in repose amid ocean bil- 
lows, what should be the serenity of that Christian heart 
which, by faith in that unslumbering Goodness, can tran- 
quilly commit every interest for time and for eternity to a 
loving heavenly Father's care. 

What did it matter if God's children were tempest- 
tossed on life's sea? What did it matter if called to buffet 
adversity, misfortune and suffering? Could he not say 
"My Father is at the helm ! I shall outride the storm ; no 
mortal evil can engulf me ! No sorrow lower than the stars 
can but waft me the swifter into the haven of eternal vic- 
tory." "All is well! All is well!" "For we which have 
believed do enter into rest." 

As I have said then, friends, storms are before us all. 
Heaven so decreed, but He who is almighty to save is our 
covert from the tempest. "Thou hast made us for thyself, 



150 ENTERING INTO REST 



and our souls are restless, until they rest in thee." Not 
until the old heavens and the old earth have passed away 
can it be written, "There is no more sea." Yet God's true 
children, it must now be confessed, are sometimes Satan- 
tempted to escape the storm, to hide away from the inev- 
itable blasts of life in some mere carnal refuge. But a 
merciful God decrees that no rest shall be abiding until 
we stand on the other shore; that no life-voyage shall be 
stormless until we cast anchor beyond Jordan's flood. 

God's methods of earthly discipline are various. Some- 
times a true child of his is seemingly permitted almost to 
consummate some scheme of mere earthly ambition with- 
out check or disappointment, when suddenly comes the 
blow; the fond world-dream is shattered. Even while the 
waves are still and the sky clear sometimes comes the unex- 
pected flash and the prostrating bolt, and the heart lies 
stunned and bleeding under the rod of God. "The world 
will never look again," said a bereaved Christian mother, 
"as before little Minnie died." Ah, no, and that is why, 
stricken one, the Paradise has been death-shadowed. But 
if the world's sun has set, through the darkness a new 
star shall gleam evermore to that watching mother's eye, 
angel voices now catch her listening ear, and the Upper 
Home, oh, how much brighter since that little vacant chair 
by her side. 



ENTERING INTO REST 151 



Sometimes God makes a Christian restless by giving him 
a perpetual burden to carry through life; some stinging 
heart-sorrow, some thorn in the flesh making each step an 
anguish, some social mesalliance, or an unfortunate temper- 
ament, where self-victory is the price of eternal vigilance; 
some anxiety inseparable from business, some ceaseless, 
unintermitting, prostrating labor, some infirmity of bodily 
health. A Christian pilgrim of three score years said to 
me, "For fifteen years I have felt like one climbing a 
steep hill, with a heavy burden on his shoulders, aching, 
aching to lay it down." But though the thorn be not re- 
moved, though the cup God appointed pass not from our 
lips, sustaining grace will be sufficient. By faith we can 
enter into rest. Fellow heirs of the future, are we treading 
to-day this Beulah of trust which can antedate heaven? 
Are we at all times able to say, whether our pilgrim feet 
press the mountain-top or descend into the dark valley, 
"Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me"? Can we with 
filial hearts look up out of every experience and say, "Abba, 
Father"? Storms will come; we must suffer if we would 
reign ; but by faith we can have rest even now — not the rest 
that knows no trial, not the rest of sinless joy; that belongs 
to the glorified hereafter; but here, God helping, we can 
enter into the rest of trust, of hope, of faith, of patience. 

Our rest now, it is true, is only as the lull in the conflict, 



ENTERING INTO REST 



the awful pause where embattled armies stand face to face, 
but soon we shall lay down our armor in the Master's pres- 
ence. And then, dear friends, will not the final bivouac be 
all the sweeter for the march and the strife? Will not earth's 
tumults be evermore a background for heaven's joys? 
"What are these," asked the entranced Revelator, "what 
are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence 
came they?" Yes, the storm here, the rainbow there; the 
cross here, the crown there. Here the din of battle, there 
the shoutings of immortal victory. "For we which have 
believed do enter into rest." But, thanks be to God, a rest, 
glorious as it now is, which is but a faint fore-gleam and 
antepart of that rest, seraphic, eternal and now inconceiva- 
ble, "which remaineth, to the people of God." 



THE WORD OF LIFE 

"Holding forth the word of life."— Phil. 2 : 16. 



THE WORD OF LIFE 



By the phrase "word of life," the apostle plainly refers 
to the Holy Scriptures, or more specifically, perhaps, to 
the gospel of redemption through Christ. Various terms 
are used by the inspired writers to designate the Bible. It 
is called God's law, his testimony, his commandment, stat- 
utes, oracles and the like. The New Testament writers fre- 
quently refer to the Scriptures, under the terms, "word of 
truth," the "word of prophecy"; and here Paul uses the 
expressive phrase, the "word of life," or the life-giving 
word. The great fact is thus implied, as it is constantly 
assumed throughout the Scriptures, that God published 
his written truth for the simple purpose of generating spir- 
itual life in the hearts of men. The Bible, then, is an in- 
strument to accomplish a purpose. And just as any in- 
strument is valuable only as it serves its end, so with all 
reverence we may say that the Bible is valueless to man- 
kind only as fitted in some degree to transmute its recorded 
truth into actual and practical human life. 

The Bible mission, therefore, to our world and without 
which it would be useless to the world, is to take the ab- 
stract and unvitalized doctrines it contains, glorious in 



156 THE WORD OF LIFE 



themselves, if you please, but lying as yet inert and inani- 
mate on its written pages, and carrying them into human 
hearts, there plant them in sentient, thinking, suffering, en- 
joying, accountable human souls. When this incorruptible 
seed of the Word, thus planted in the soul, has at length 
sprung up into the glorious fruitage of Christian character 
and experience and testimony, then the Bible has done its 
appointed work. Christ's gospel, then, must first repro- 
duce and mirror its divine teachings in actual human liv- 
ing in our world. 

The world's skepticism is to be met and finally con- 
quered, not by impregnable creeds, not by learned defences 
of faith, not by scholarly lectureships or eloquent pulpits, 
but first and foremost, in my judgment, by the very spirit 
of the incarnate Lord outshining from his own instituted 
and professing Church. This proof of Christianity the 
world will accept, and ultimately it will accept no other. 

A learned botanist may perhaps detect a beauty and a 
latent power in the structure of a flower-seed or a kernel 
of wheat, but common minds will not admire them until 
they have bloomed in the many colored flowers, or waved 
in the yellow harvest. An engraver etching his work on 
steel, with his practised eye may see a beauty in his picture 
before transferred to copy ; not so, the inartistic multitude. 
A skilful printer can read the thoughts of an author, as 



THE WORD OF LIFE 



157 



they lie before him in the leaden type, but the mass of men 
must wait until the printed pages are scattered broadcast 
over the land. Now, not unlike this, I apprehend, is it with 
treatises and compendiums in favor of religion. A few 
disciplined, professional minds can perhaps comprehend the 
force of an abstract argument, conducted in defence of 
the Christian faith ; but the great majority in every com- 
munity will ever be dependent on the reproduction of this 
divine logic in the actual every-day living of Christian men 
and women. Hence Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "Ye are 
our epistle . . . known and read of all men." This is the 
world-method of judging in other matters ; why not in 
religion? 

Your neighbor invents an instrument or machine for 
which he claims a certain efficiency ; is it unfair that you ask 
him to put his machine on trial? A man claims to be an 
artist. How does the world decide? Is there any other 
way to judge him than by his works? Sir Christopher 
Wren is pronounced a great architect. Did he make his 
fame on paper? You enter St. Paul's cathedral in London, 
built by the genius of this man. As you stand beneath the 
dome in the center of that magnificent structure, nave and 
transept stretching before you like a very wilderness of 
arched and sculptured beauty, graved on the marble floor, 
above the spot where rest the ashes of the great builder, 



158 



THE WORD OF LIFE 



are these words: "Si monumentum reqairis, circumspice!" "If 
you seek his monument, look around you." That mighty 
fabric is his only monument, and to all generations it will 
declare beyond cavil what was the genius of Christopher 

Wren. 

A physician may discourse to you on the laws of the 
human body, the nature of disease, the composition of the 
blood, the structure of the nervous system; and he assures 
you that medicine has this and that chemical potency, and 
ought to expel disease in accordance with this and that 
beautiful, preestablished harmony or disharmony in the 
human system. His conversation may be very fluent and 
delightful and learned. But, after all, he must not complain 
if you test his merits as a physician, not upon his theories, 
but upon his practice. 

Xow, my friends, this Bible professes to do a certain 
gracious work for fallen human nature. It professes to 
make men better; more unselfish, loving, benevolent, hon- 
est, upright. Men ask, Is this accomplished? It is claimed 
that religion makes men nobler in every human relation- 
ship, purer in motive, more patient in suffering, more 
steadfast under temptation, more forgiving in spirit, more 
truthful in speech, more honest in business, better parents, 
husbands, wives, sons, daughters, neighbors, citizens, mer- 
chants ; in short, nobler patterns of manhood and woman- 



THE WORD OF LIFE 



159 



hood, in every possible human condition. Is it unreason- 
able, then, that the world should inspect the lives of its pro- 
fessed exemplars, and their final verdict should rest, not 
upon the deductions of logic, but upon the facts witnessed? 
But whether we object or not, this will be the final crucial 
test in the case. And when the world's deep-rooted and 
loud-voiced unbelief has been at last silenced, believe me, 
it will be, not by the might of argument, but by the might 
of God's own truth, incarnate in the lives of his own pe- 
culiar, Christ-redeemed people. 

It will need but a moment's thought, I am sure, to con- 
vince us all, that no truth in this world, religious or secu- 
lar, has any appreciable power over men that was not an 
incarnated truth; in other words, an experienced truth, a 
truth lodged experimentally in the head and heart of him 
who utters it, for the persuasion of his fellow men. A man 
who has himself felt, for example, the horror of intemper- 
ance alone can thrill other minds with living pictures of the 
terrible evil. A man who has taken into his heart and taste 
and sensibility, as well as intellect, a noble art or science, 
alone can move other minds to enthusiasm on that sub- 
ject. And without some degree of enthusiasm no one mind, 
on any subject, can really influence another. Now in re- 
gard to Christian doctrine, if a man stands up> in a pulpit 
and preaches a doctrine he has not felt or experienced in 



i6o THE WORD OF LIFE 



his own soul, you know it at once. You know whether it 
be /^ad-preaching or /^ar/-preaching to which you listen, 
and if there be no heart in the utterance, it will have little 
power over you. 

You, a Christian man, go to an unbelieving neighbor to 
warn him of his sin and to seek to win him to the cross of 
Christ. He knows instantly whether you are speaking what 
you feel, what has sounded the depths of your own re- 
sponding soul, or whether you are merely uttering conven- 
tional phrases and pious cant, and your words will reach 
him or not, just as he sees they are vital or not at the center 
of your own being. 

And now, since experimental religion or truth experi- 
enced must lie, as we have seen, at the basis of all genuine 
Christian power in the world, another fact of great moment 
comes into view. It is this, that personal Christian influ- 
ence will widely vary, even in the case of genuine and truly 
experimental Christians. Why so? For the simple reason 
that no two human souls ever experience truth precisely in 
the same manner and degree. Take a simple illustration of 
what I mean. Jonathan Edwards, when brought into the 
kingdom of God at conversion, saw Christian truth at the 
angle of God's sovereignty. His whole soul was entranced 
with that one overpowering thought and that one thought 
filled and transfigured the whole sky of his intellectual vis- 



THE WORD OF LIFE 



161 



ion. That one thought became the key-note of all his sub- 
sequent religious experience. And that one thought, it is 
not too much to say, is only sublimely repeated through 
all his voluminous and masterly writings. George White- 
field, on the other hand, at conversion saw Christian truth 
at the angle of divine Love ; and how, again, did that glo- 
rious theme swell in his heart and burn on his lips, through 
all his wonderful ministry! Now it is a noted biographical 
fact, that each of these men was peculiarly successful and 
powerful as a preacher, just on the line of truth which he 
himself had most deeply and roundly experienced. He 
could hold forth that particular truth of God's Word better 
than any other. 

The apostles themselves had their distinguishing "gifts." 
We would not now willingly spare from the New Testa- 
ment either Paul's sublime expositions of faith or James' 
pungent doctrine of "works," or Peter's fiery zeal, or John's 
seraphic meditations, for these idiosyncrasies of character 
and of style are all needed to complete the circle of inspired 
instruction bequeathed to all ages of time. 

So, again, Christians after conversion arrive at very dis- 
similar personal attainments through God's personal provi- 
dential dealings with them. One Christian, for example, is 
called preeminently to the baptism of suffering and at 
length attains in a marked degree the grace of patience. 



1 62 THE WORD OF LIFE 



Now that disciple, thereafter, can hold forth that particular 
virtue of the gospel as no other disciple, not called to a like 
discipline. 

It was my opportunity once to know a poor Christian 
woman, living in a humble cottage, bedridden for years, suf- 
fering all the privations of poverty, and yet whoever entered 
her presence, saw her face ever lighted with the same se- 
rene, happy smile, and her lips ready with a word for her 
Saviour. Not a murmur escaped her lips. On the con- 
trary, she was continually recounting the mercies of her 
God and his wondrous goodness to her. Her only lament 
to her pastor was that she had no opportunity for useful- 
ness. Usefulness! Could that pastor, with all his learn- 
ing and cunning skill of words, produce a sermon on pa- 
tience having one tithe the power that that poor woman, 
in her lone cottage, from the pulpit of her sick-bed, was 
preaching seven days in the week to all who knew her! 
She was holding forth the truth in her life and that made 
it powerful. 

You, my Christian friend, it may be, have been called 
to affliction in a peculiar way; bereft, it may be, of a loved 
companion or idolized child. God has never called me to 
the same bitter trial. Have I, then, a key of sympathy to 
unlock your heart and pour in healing consolation like one 
who himself has passed through the same furnace of sor- 



THE WORD OF LIFE 163 



row? I may come to you as God's minister; I may come 
to you with the abounding comfort of his Word; from 
the depths of my soul I may pity you, but I have no power 
to sympathize with you like one whose own heartstrings 
have been torn by the same terrible grief. 

This principle, I here announce, runs through unques- 
tionably the whole circle of human experience. Whatever 
God has enabled you or me specially to experience and to 
appropriate of his truth, that particular truth we can com- 
municate to other minds better than any one else. What- 
ever he has called us especially to suffer of hardship, in- 
firmity, pain, grief, trial, of whatever kind or name, by vir- 
ture of that suffering God henceforth commissions and or- 
dains us to be ministers of grace and comfort to his stricken 
children around us, suffering in like manner. We are called 
of God to> hold forth in our lives that particular phase of 
Christian truth and discipline; and we can do it better than 
any one else. 

So, again, the different social conditions and relationships 
existing among men open up specific channels of influence, 
and lay an obligation upon every Christian disciple for a 
peculiar personal work. Society in this world is graded 
naturally and artificially. Men are classified or separated 
from each other by their tastes, occupations, nationalities, 
education, professions and religions. Society exists in cir- 



164 THE WORD OF LIFE 



cles, wheels within wheels. Now persons thrown together 
in the same social circle, following the same pursuits, culti- 
vating kindred tastes, possessing like sympathies, ought to 
find an access to each others' hearts, not open to strangers. 
Men bound together by the tie of a common profession 
ought to have more influence reciprocally, with each other, 
than those without such mental or professional affinity. 

A Christian physician ought to have more influence over 
an irreligious brother physician than anybody else. A 
Christian lawyer, soundly converted, ought to have a hun- 
dred times more influence for Christ among lawyers than 
any clergyman can possibly have, because he understands, 
as no outsider can, the peculiar mental temptations, preju- 
dices and susceptibilities of his class. So, whatever affilia- 
tion of taste or sympathy binds men together, that social 
bond in every instance, I affirm, ought to be converted into 
a magnetic wire, along which shall flow perpetually cur- 
rents of sacred influence for Christ. You have heard of the 
Moravian missionary, who, in order to take advantage of 
the powerful social principle, when sent among slaves, put 
on their coarse attire, toiled with them in the field, shared 
their humble meals, slept in a like lowly cot, that by this 
Christlike power of sympathy he might find an avenue 
to their degraded hearts. And now, my friends, if in any 
Christian community, all through the fibers of society, up 



THE WORD OF LIFE 



165 



and down, the social principle, to speak now of nothing 
else, was everywhere consecrated to Christ, what an acces- 
sion of hallowed power, at once, to the Christian Church 
of God! If all the ties of blood and friendship were made 
electric for the Saviour; if every bond of sympathy, born 
of profession or occupation or trade, were made, as it might 
be, a hook of steel to draw some soul to the cross, what a 
mighty enginery of moral power would at once be set in 
motion for the spread of God's truth! 

Not a Christian hears me to-day but can work for his 
Master in lines and places where I as a minister have no 
power. There are circles of influence where but one soul 
can occupy the center, and not one before me but is sur- 
rounded by such a circle. Many of you, all this coming 
week, will walk side by side with some friend or school- 
mate or companion or business associate, to whose ear and 
heart, beyond all others, you have confidential access. 
Christian friends, in all our varied callings and circles in 
life, are we striving to* make every social tie a lever of con- 
secrated influence for the Master's honor and the salvation 
of immortal souls? Be assured that not till this is done, 
will the Church of God become that mighty, resistless, or- 
ganic influence, which God instituted it to' be, in this sin- 
stricken world. If then there be any truth unfolded in my 
text to-day, or any force in the facts now presented, they 



THE WORD OF LIFE 



all lead us, as it seems to me, directly to this conclusion, 
that it is the height of folly to expect that this world will 
be won over to Christ simply by the formal proclamation of 
abstract Christian doctrine — in other words, by preaching 
without practice, or that the so-called ministry of the 
Church is to do the main work of holding forth the word of 
life, while the Church as a body shall remain neutral and 
unemployed. 

We know well the indispensableness of a wise, brave and 
skilful general at the head of an army; but in military mat- 
ters we know as well that the officer's duty is not so much 
himself to fight, as to organize, instruct, lead and bring out 
into faithful service all the fighting qualities of his united 
soldiery. What now would be said of a general who, on 
the eve of an engagement, should lead forth his troops to 
the battle-plain, draw them up in solid squares, order them 
to "ground arms," fold their hands and look on, while he 
met the enemy! And yet there are Christians, not a few, 
who Sunday after Sunday go to church, draw themselves up 
decorously, rank and file, in the pews before the minister, 
and look on to see with what skill, single-handed, he shall 
fight the battle of God with sin and the devil. Then they 
go away from God's house, commenting on the effort, but 
apparently without a thought that they have any part or 
lot in that stupendous conflict which is raging between the 



THE WORD OF LIFE 



marshaled hosts of darkness and of light! Brethren, do 
you think this world will ever be conquered for Christ by 
this method? If not, is it not time to change our policy, 
and in solid phalanx throw our united columns as a church 
of churches against the center of the foe, and then look 
around us, and see if (by God's help) he has not staggered 
under the onset? This, as I read his Word, is God's or- 
dained method of fighting sin in this world — a united 
church, shoulder to shoulder in the strife. 

As I have said, there is not a Christian but can do a 
work no minister can do. Many a minister would be a 
great gainer could he lay off the "minister" wholly in reach- 
ing many persons. With a large class, a minister's profes- 
sion alone is well-nigh a perfect barrier to his doing them 
any good. It is an established principle in military tactics, 
as you know, always, if possible, to execute a flank move- 
ment upon the enemy. If you, march up in his face, you 
must meet all his guns and fight him behind his chosen 
intrenchments. But if suddenly you can maneuver a side 
movement, and come upon him unawares, not unlikely 
you will dislodge and overpower him. Now a minister 
must always) attack in front. His profession itself rings a 
bell before him and everybody knows he is coming! He 
must march right up to the guns as they stand primed 
and aimed, and contend with the sinner or skeptic be- 



168 THE WORD OF LIFE 



hind his chosen intrenchments. Of course he contends 
at great disadvantage. But if now in secular life, in the 
ordinary interviews of companionship or business, at 
some unexpected moment a faithful disciple of Jesus re- 
veals a shining Christian principle, or drops an earnest 
word, it strikes at an unguarded point, and not unlikely, 
the conscience, taken unawares, is fatally pierced. Oh, how 
often thus has some smooth pebble of truth, slung from 
the hand of some unpretending combatant, slain a very 
giant of unbelief before whom the whole army of the Lord, 
it may be, has trembled ! And so, if the minister's profes- 
sion did not embarrass him, no minister, as we have seen, 
has that complete and rounded personal experience neces- 
sary to give him efficacious access to all human souls. 

This broad experience is the product of the church as a 
whole ; and, therefore, the work to be done must be done 
by the church as a whole. No single Christian, be he never 
so able, learned or saintly, is more than a single stone in the 
mystic temple Christ is rearing. The whole church with 
Christ at the corner and the headstone laid, will be that 
temple at last, finished, glorious, symmetrical. Brethren in 
Christ, soldiers of the cross, do we not need the whole army 
in this great warfare to which we are called? In that gigan- 
tic struggle from which we have but recently emerged, a 
saved nation, could we have spared any arm of the patriotic 



THE WORD OF LIFE 



169 



service on land or on sea? Could we have spared cavalry, 
artillery, infantry? Could we have spared our picket service, 
our sharpshooters? Brethren, we want more snapshoot- 
ing in the church ! We want Christians who will pick their 
men, and, heaven helping, not leave them until they are 
brought to Christ. As we are confronting principalities and 
powers of darkness in God's work, as in this unbelieving 
age a very battle of Armageddon seems waging at our 
doors, as God's anointed people, do we not need, in this 
great Christian campaign before us, beyond everything else, 
a more concerted, consolidated forward movement under 
our great Captain of all his loyal forces against the common 
enemy? Do we not need to have every sword clash and 
every bayonet ring into its socket all along the embattled 
lines of the militant Church of the living God? And then 
we, too, may look for victory. 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 

"Run with patience." — Heb. 12 : 1. 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 



This chapter opens with a magnificent picture. Its back- 
ground of metaphor is a Grecian amphitheatre, where 
thousands of eager and applauding spectators are gathered 
to witness a Grecian race. The preceding chapter, that 
famous eleventh of Hebrews, is inlaid, as you remember, 
with a roll of illustrious names, which, like an imperishable 
mosaic, down all the Christian ages have gleamed forth 
from the gallery of God's Word. These ancient heroes of 
faith, with all the ransomed angelic bands, are pictured by 
the apostle, in this opening of the twelfth chapter, as gath- 
ered in some supernal and glorified convocation, a little 
beyond our mortal ken, — the Church above triumphant — 
to witness the race for heaven's crown of the Church yet 
below, struggling and militant. "Wherefore seeing we al- 
so are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses," 
he writes, "let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which 
doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the 
race that is set before us." 

Every color and shading of this passage would repay 
our prolonged study. But narrowing our view and shut- 
ting off, if you please, all side-lights, let me invite your at- 



174 RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 



tention for a few moments, to the simple injunctive clause, 
"Run with patience." 

I must think, brethren, there is inspired wisdom in this 
simple collocation of words — the most active image in our 
language as descriptive of human conduct, coupled with 
the most self-restraining and contempered word in human 
speech. Nothing could more perfectly symbolize complete, 
strenuous, intense exertion than this figure of a race, and 
yet in immediate connection with it is a word embracing 
in its primary idea all the most conservative and self-re- 
pressing qualities that enter into* human character. 

But in my judgment, both words are needed, and just 
where they are. They are the two segments of a circle — 
the two hemispheres of a perfect, rounded, spiritual devel- 
opment. A Christian character which does not combine 
in itself both of these factors in joint operation, I take to 
be a character incomplete. The progressiveness of action 
needs ever to be allied with the resistance, the counterpoise 
of patience. 

For a moment at the outset let nature shed light on my 
subject. Every strong, steady and reliable movement in 
nature, as you know well, is the resultant of antagonistic 
forces. The majestic and undeviating roll of the planets 
through space is attained simply by balanced powers, cen- 
trifugal gravitation just equalling centripetal force. In 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 175 

like manner every physical growth and phenomenon 
throughout nature we find on examination to be the off- 
spring of opposing laws wedded into harmony, cohesive 
attraction just offsetting specific gravity, chemical affini- 
ties precisely matching and poising each other, magnet- 
ism and electricity with their positive and negative poles. 

Philosophers now tell us that the physical universe it- 
self, from the most central sun that flames above us to 
the smallest pebble that is washed by the waves of the sea, 
is but one great dynamic system, whose sublime and vis- 
ible repose is only latent antagonisms held in balance. 

Now what is thus true in nature, I think is no less true 
in the realm of character. Inward, self-generating force, 
we all recognize as the first attribute of manhood. But a 
character is sadly defective, as we all admit, if the force, 
however great, be all of one kind. Character needs pro- 
pelling power; equally it needs checking power. A man, for 
example, all propulsion of will, ardor of temperament, dash, 
spurt and fume, is like a locomotive with noi power to re- 
verse its motion ; is like a railway train on a down grade 
with no brakes for the wheels. Every rightly developed 
character, then, is simply personal forces in equilibrium. 
If you seek a man, you seek force, but force balanced. 

Now educators of the young, parents oftentimes, as it 
seems to me, seriously misjudge their children right at 



i/6 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 



this point, lavishing their unstinted approval on mere 
negative, forceless amiability, while reserving all their 
prophecies of evil for the child or pupil which early ex- 
hibits strong self-assertion, independence of will, so called, 
and an ardent impulsiveness of temperament. But these 
characteristics, in nearly all cases, I take to be simply one- 
side developments of a superior character. A boy who 
has not these forces to some extent is hardly a boy. Cer- 
tain it is, he will never become a man. What youthful 
character needs, in all cases, in due time, is a proportional 
development on the other side ; of the higher and restrain- 
ing principles of mankind and self-respect — conscience, 
reverence, and a high and noble life-ambition. And thus 
what in youth are often termed wayward traits, how often 
under the influence of Christian education and the restrain- 
ing grace of God, do they become the truest and grandest 
motor-forces of society! 

Paul, as I conceive, would not have been the chiefest of 
the apostles had he not been the chiefest of persecutors. 
In a modified sense, we may say, he would not have been 
the Christian he was, if in his dark and unconverted days 
he had not been, as he afterward so humbly and penitently 
confessed, the "chief of sinners." That is, the tempera- 
ment, the nature which made him the one, under God's 
overruling and all-conquering grace at length made him 
the other. 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 



177 



Applying these principles to the ongoing of human so- 
ciety, we see reformers, of more benevolence than knowl- 
edge of human nature, lamenting the existence of con- 
servative influences in the community, which so stubbornly 
modify and counteract , their own efforts. Conservative 
men, on the other hand, deplore just as honestly the ex- 
istence of radical and enthusiastic tempers, which, as they 
imagine, are pushing on the car of reform too hotly. But 
I suspect, friends, that society could not well spare either of 
these moral forces. Mark you, I am not now speaking 
of a misnamed conservatism — a modern fungus growth, 
which too often, it must be confessed, steals the honored 
title only to protect vice and stretch its vulture wings over 
every form of rotting iniquity in the land — but I now 
speak of genuine conservatism, as a legitimate and prin- 
cipled force in society, and I repeat, in my judgment, both 
forces are needed, like centrifugal and centripetal grav- 
itation to a planet, keeping after all, I suspect, in the long 
run, the chariot of human advancement in its safest and 
most successful orbit. 

In like manner this personal equipoise or capability of 
self-balance enters largely into all great individual charac- 
ters the world has known. Only a strong character, in any 
sphere, can wait as well as act. Only a great man can be 
truly patient. Only a richly furnished soul can bide his 



178 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 



time and achieve the heroism of silence. Mediocrity blus- 
ters, swaggers, explains ; only a crowned soul, of regal self- 
poise, can calmly stand amid detraction and misapprehen- 
sion, and with uplifted eye, mindful only of the star of 
duty, wait the day-dawn of a better future. Only a hero- 
spirit, I think, can rise above the noisy surf of contem- 
porary judgment foaming at his feet, and mounting the 
watch-tower of his own conscious integrity or genius 
tranquilly turn his glass toward the horizon of the ages. 
Said Kepler, king of astronomers and sublimest of the 
sons of earth, on the annunciation of his three great as- 
tronomic laws, more than two hundred years ago, stand- 
ing amid the scientific derision of his time: "If God could 
wait six thousand years for an observer, I can wait a cen- 
tury for a reader" And the readers have come ! Said 
Victor Immanuel, Italy's hero-king, nearly a generation 
ago to his Sicilian parliament: "Seigniors, it is as wise to 
wait at the right time as to dare at the right time." And 
that intellect only, let me say to you, wears the seal of 
God's own nobility which on the tumultuous arena of 
human events and opinions, is able, at all times, rightly to 
temper patience with daring. 

In the light of these reflections, turning our thoughts 
more directly to the contemplation of the Christian life, 
are we not prepared, my brethren, to attach a somewhat 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 179 



added significance to these words of the apostle to-day: 
"Run with patience"? The highest ideal of Christian char- 
acter is ever a just union of the active and the passive vir- 
tues. 

The best type of Christian manhood is a joint product of 
the two. The Christian life, first of all, is a race, and the 
word, as we have seen, is the most concentrated simile of 
human activity that Scripture employs. It implies the 
completest and intensest forthputting of all our voluntary 
powers. The ancient racer bent every energy for the goal. 
He struggled, agonized for victory. So must the Chris- 
tian "run that he may obtain." But while he runs, his 
loins must be girded with the grace of patience. He must 
temper zeal with knowledge, courage with fortitude, im- 
pulsiveness with self-containment, the wisdom of the ser- 
pent with the harmlessness of the dove, a fiery eagerness 
to do with a calm willingness to- wait, if need be, and to 
suffer. 

As a matter of fact in Christian experience, I think we 
shall find that the passive side of religious character is 
usually the last to be developed. The young convert 
burns with enthusiasm. His zeal is uncurbed and effer- 
vescent. His love is demonstrative. His soul is swayed 
to and fro with the surging tides of a new-born devotion. 
Like mercurial Peter, he is ready to go with his Master 



i8o RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 



both into prison! and to death. He impetuously draws his 
sword to smite on every side the enemies of religion. He 
is equal to any exploit of faith, to any achievement of dar- 
ing. But on the side of patience, he is yet a child. And 
I think every follower of the lowly Master is obliged to 
learn, often through painful rebukes and discomfitures, as 
did Peter, this last great lesson of the gospel. I think, es- 
pecially, that every Christian minister is obliged to return 
often from labors, to stand once more before that sub- 
lime picture of incarnate Patience delivered in the four 
Gospels, before he receives that full baptism of humility 
and brooding, self-forgetting love, that makes him truly 
'Vise to win souls." 

The young soldier of the cross, how apt to think that 
the great Goliath of iniquity shall fall at a single stone 
hurled from his valiant arm ! But, alas, he soon finds that 
in this great warfare we wage not with flesh and blood. 
Satan and his hellish host do not so quickly fly the field. 
We must fight and fight again; rest upon our arms and 
then renew the desperate conflict, though for weary 
months and years God gives us scarcely an earnest of the 
coming victory. My friends, was not this the patience of 
the Master? Open once more the wondrous record. See 
him weeping over incorrigible Jerusalem. See him bear- 
ing with the ignorance and perversity of his own disciples 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 181 



down to the very last, gentle and compassionate ever 
toward the erring; meek under insult, his motives im- 
pugned, his teachings unheeded, and yet not one mur- 
muring or retaliatory word though his ministry. On 
the contrary, love, compassion, ineffable tenderness seemed 
to shine out all the brighter as the very midnight of 
human guilt and obduracy closes around him. Dear breth- 
ren, have we any other pattern than this to w r ork by? 

And thus it comes to pass, I apprehend, that every dis- 
ciple learns in process of time what perhaps he did not 
dream of at the first, that, as a rule, it is unspeakably 
easier in this world to do God's will than to bear it. How 
soon does the young Christian discover after his, conver- 
sion, that a large part of his religious; life-work is to come 
to him, in all probability, day by day, in the very humble 
and unpretending form of resistance to evil, simple unos- 
tentatious endurance under the shafts of satanic tempta- 
tion ; simple, steadfast obedience to a cross-bearing Lord, 
though called to put down his feet, it may be, even into 
his own blood-tracked steps, while no eye but His cheers 
and approves along his suffering! And what experienced 
Christian will not now give us this testimony, that for- 
titude, meekness, humility, sweetness of temper, bridling 
one's tongue, charity that thinketh no evil, forgiveness of 
injuries up to seventy times seven, and unfaltering trust in 



1 82 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 



God, though he seem, about to slay us ; that virtues and 
graces like these are a thousand times harder to practice 
and to win and exemplify than any of a more showy and 
aggressive kind? And how often are these passive virtues, 
my friends, slowly wrought out of the forge of God, after 
having been smelted in the fires of terrible discipline, even 
as our great Forerunner was made perfect at last through 
suffering ! 

Now for a moment, further, before dismissing our sub- 
ject, let me ask you to look a little more closely at this 
topic in hand as related to constitutional peculiarities ; in 
other words, to those mental and physical qualities which 
we often group together under the one word "tempera- 
ment." Now what is a man's temperament? I take it to 
be that quality or peculiarity of his organization which 
makes him susceptible to outside influences, to his per- 
sonal surroundings ; which constitutes him, in other 
words, an impressible or variable being. Temperaments 
differ mainly, as I conceive, in point of excitability, or 
sensibility or emotional habit. I am aware that many per- 
sons regard excitement or high-wrought emotion in re- 
ligion as altogether out of place. I cannot agree with 
them. Men get excited on all other subjects; why not on 
religion? But it must now be freely admitted that it does 
not lie in the power of any human being to be at all times 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 183 

equally excited, or sensationally impressed, about religion 
or any other subject. Emotion, you need not be told, is 
one of the most variable elements in our nature. It dif- 
fers widely in different persons. It differs widely in the 
same person at different times. There are periods of spe- 
cial religious exaltation with us all, and there are periods 
of corresponding depression, I am satisfied, with us all. 
Never yet a Christian, I care not how fortunate his tem- 
perament, was able to build an abiding tabernacle in this 
world, either for himself or anybody else, on the top of a 
transfigured mountain. Christ never meant he should. 
We are all, then, to have our shadowed hours, our valleys 
of humiliation, as well as our Beulah lands and our Delec- 
table Mountains, on our pilgrim path to heaven. And 
whether mental philosophers and religious teachers ap- 
prove or not, these emotional fluctuations in the religious 
life have always taken place and doubtless always will. 
But now, mark you, while a man's religion will vary, and 
in my judgment may innocently vary, as a simple emotion, 
it should never vary one hair's breadth as a spiritual power, 
— as a guiding motor-principle behind his whole responsible 
life. A ship's captain may crowd on more or less canvas, 
according to the weather and the wind; but unless that cap- 
tain has lost his senses, he will not unship his rudder, or 
abandon his helm, or throw overboard his compass, let the 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 



weather be what it may. For these latter are all fixed quan- 
tities in the science of navigation by which he is to hold 
his ship inflexibly on her course until her destined port is 
reached. 

Emotionally, the winds of life may be favorable or unfav- 
orable to you and to me, on our Christian voyage, but high 
above all shifting winds and storms that sweep and howl 
through our rigging, is set evermore, in God's own arch 
above us, the gleaming pole-star of duty, by which we are 
ceaselessly to steer. Consciously, or temperamentally, our 
love to God will change, our spiritual joy, our Christian 
hope on certain favored days, will arch above us a sunnier 
sky than on other days. This changeableness belongs to 
the very limitations and infirmities of our present life. But 
now, while I say this, remember that in every truly regen- 
erated breast, deeper down, infinitely deeper down, than 
any conscious emotion or feeling, or temporary enjoyment 
or superficial excitability is rolling an undercurrent of calm, 
fathomless, unveering loyalty to Jesus Christ, our enthroned 
Lord, a loyalty knowing no abatement and no change. 
Ah, friends, it is not a difficult thing to be simply a revival 
Christian in this world. It costs but little to follow Jesus 
when all the world about us is shouting hosanna and clam- 
orous to make him King! But when the fickle multitude 
withdraws, when the wave of popular enthusiasm recedes, 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 185 



then to cling to the despised and crownless Teacher of 
Nazareth requires something more, believe me, than mere 
animal excitement, something more than a mere sensa- 
tional piety. It requires that deep-hidden, foundation-rock 
of Spirit, born of character, upon which Christ is evermore 
building his Church in this world. 

My brethren, unless I mistake, what the Church of God 
supremely needs among us to-day is a revival of religion, 
that shall be followed by something more than a stony- 
ground harvest — a revival with some subsoiling in it, that 
shall run its plowshare of conviction and repentance, first 
of all, underneath the deep-rooted and chronic worldliness 
of the nominal Church of Christ; a radical, principled piety, 
that shall stand for God, and put on his armor and face the 
foe and uplift the cross and fight the world, the flesh and 
the devil. Oh, for a revival once more of Christian con- 
sistency, of Christian steadfastness, of Christian conscien- 
tiousness in the carriage of the daily life; for a piety once 
more in our land, that shall be ribbed and stanchioned, 
through and through, with the live oak of moral integrity 
and Bible rectitude and vital godliness, seven days in the 
week ! Heaven forbid that I should decry emotion or ex- 
alted types of religious experience ! I simply say, let us go 
on unto perfection; let us complete the circle; let us "per- 
fect holiness, in the fear of God." What is "holiness," in 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 



the Bible sense, as well as etymologically? Simply "whole- 
ness." A "holy" man is simply a whole man, as God reckons 
him. And shall we aim at any mark lower than that? Said 
the mother of Gardner Spring, of the "Brick Church," New 
York, many years ago to her newly converted boy, "Every 
Christian grace, my son, except one, has its counterfeit. 
You may love, but it may be a selfish love. You may have 
faith, but only the faith that trembles. You may have hope 
and joy, but they may be spurious. There is one grace, 
however, you can never counterfeit, it is the grace of per- 
severance.'" 

Finally, only as we wisely combine patience with activity, 
waiting with running, shall we attain at last to the full stat- 
ure of the perfect manhood of Jesus Christ. Neither factor 
can be left out. We must run, we must wait, wait upon 
God, not with the waiting of unbelief, not with the waiting 
of carnal lethargy, but with the waiting of unshaken faith 
and ceaseless prayer. While, on the one hand, we shun 
the Scylla of pride, of overweening confidence in unaided 
human ability ; with ever more horror, on the other hand, 
must we shun the theological whirlpool, that Charybdis of 
falsehood, the popular maxim which first and last has lured 
so many churches of Christ to their spiritual ruin — the 
maxim of "waiting God's time." As a rule of human ac- 
tivity, that maxim, in my belief, is begotten of the father of 



RUNNING WITH PATIENCE 187 



lies. God's time is man's time. God's time is ever the 
present time. God has no time when man may cease to 
work. He must run, but with patience. Faith and works 
then go together. Hand in hand, twin children of God, 
they must climb the heavenly road. If they separate they 
fail. If they separate neither shall enter the Golden City. 
Faith without works is dead. Works without faith are 
thrice dead. 

Dear brethren, let us all aspire to learn this crowning 
lesson of the Christian life — to work and to pray, to do and 
to suffer, to labor and to wait. Let us not put asunder 
what God has joined together. Let us not divorce divine 
and human agency, but leave them just where God leaves 
them in his Word — evermore meeting and harmonizing in 
this higher and glorious circle of practical truth, brought 
us by my text to-day, "Run with patience." 



THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of 
gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found 
unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." — 
i Peter i : 7. 



THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 



In every divine tabulation of values, faith stands first. 
Nothing below heaven is so precious, we are taught, in the 
sight of God, as faith in the hearts of his earthly children. 
Other objects, indeed, excite the divine regard. The 
beauty and perfection of his material universe; the heavens 
which declare his glory; the precious stones compounded in 
the crucibles of the earth; the gold and silver that vein the 
mountains; the gems and pearls that inlay the ocean's 
floor — all these material objects, we cannot doubt, have a 
recognized value in the divine Mind. Moreover, in the 
grandeur of his person and the kingliness of his powers, 
man, God's creative masterpiece, transcends in dignity all 
the stars that flame above him. And yet, man, made but a 
little lower than the angels, crowned with reason and im- 
mortality, without faith, without heart-fealty to the supreme 
Mind and Will of the universe, is only an alien and rebel 
child of the infinite Father of the world. 

Clearly, then, it is the function of faith, and faith only, 
to unite a finite soul in the completeness of its being to 
God, as gravitation binds a planet to< the sun. Without 
faith not only is it impossible to please God, but without 



192 THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 

faith it is impossible for God in any conceivable sense to be 
God — that is, to maintain a moral and personal supremacy 
over the vers- spirit-intelligences he has created. Hence the 
Bible, as I have said, everywhere postulates faith as the 
first thing. It is the initial act of the new-born soul, and 
it is the final victory by which the world is overcome and 
heaven gained. Glancing over these sacred pages, we fur- 
thermore find there severest warnings, and denunciations 
are directed ever against the one parent-sin of unbelief. 
Thus, from cover to cover, the Bible clearly emphasizes 
the preciousness of faith. But turning now from the 
written Word to the ongoing administration of a divine 
providence over human affairs, and the same great truth 
confronts us, that in the divine estimation faith stands 
first. Why is so much mystery yet in our world, to darken 
our mortal pathway? Why is so little told us of the future? 
Why are so many enigmas of our race unexplained? And, 
above all, why has God left the great paramount truth of 
his own existence so indistinct and clouded that wicked 
men have it in their power to say, "There is no God"? Why 
has he not written this truth of his own personality and om- 
nipresent government in such burning characters all over 
the sky. that modern agnosticism would be impossible — 
that no heart could disbelieve, if it would? Why is not the 
veil drawn for one moment from the invisible world so 



THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 193 

near, and God's pilgrim children granted now and then an 
actual vision of scenes and glories inconceivable, and of 
despair that human words cannot measure? Why, I ask, 
with even an open Bible in our hands, is our knowledge of 
futurity so dim and circumscribed? Can there be any 
other answer to this question than that here and now we 
walk by faith and not by sight, and that the infinite Father 
counts faith to be the most priceless fruitage of the human 
soul, and to beget and nurture his divine principle he 
brings to bear all the appliances of his earthly government 
over men? Did you enter a schoolroom, and wherever you 
turned, hanging upon the walls and adjusted in different 
parts of the room, you saw maps and apparatus all illustrat- 
ing the science of geography, you would say at once, geog- 
raphy is the branch of knowledge taught here. If entering 
another apartment you saw the walls covered with diagrams 
and mathematical figures, with equal promptness you 
would say, mathematics is taught here. So I must think 
that no thoughtful or reverent mind can for a moment con- 
template the adjustment of this world, as related to human 
life and destiny, and not instantly conclude that the great 
and prime education to which God is here subjecting his 
human children is education in faith. 

But, my friends, education is a process, a discipline, a 
schooling from lower toward higher attainments, from the. 



194 THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 



imperfect toward the perfect. Hence, Peter, thus address- 
ing his fellow believers, "Now for a season, if need be, ye 
are in heaviness through manifold temptations : that the 
trial [or the schooling] of your faith," by means of these 
temptations, may be found at last like gold that had been 
purged and clarified and made resplendent by fire. The 
emphatic word, then, in my text, evidently is this word 
trial — and faith tried is the theme it brings us. 

Now one may have faith, true faith, and yet it may not 
be the highest kind of faith. My friends, one may have 
faith, a true child of God may have faith, true faith, and 
yet not faith of the highest kind. It may still possess 
adulterating elements, lacking standard fineness and qual- 
ity simply because of not having passed through the most 
crucial and fiery test of the divine laboratory. Few things 
there are, we know well, in this world of ours which are not 
better tried than untried. How sweet to all our hearts is 
friendship, and yet how beyond price is friendship that has 
been tried — that has stood the test of years ; been with us 
summer and winter; stood with us on the radiant mount 
of prosperity and gone with us down into the starless val- 
ley of adversity and never faltered ! Who can put a price 
on friendship like that? What a jewel in the crown of any 
character is honesty, but with what tenfold luster does hon- 
esty shine that has been tried — that has been under the 



THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 195 



strain of some terrible temptation, but has come forth from 
the furnace without the smeli of fire on its garments ! You 
have seen a ship leave port, the heavens bright, everything 
gay and trim; her sails white and her freshly painted sides 
glistening in the sun. And perhaps months after, standing 
on the wharf, you have chanced to see that same ship re- 
turn. But now she enters the harbor under a blackened 
sky, with rigging torn, and hull and masts battered by the 
winds and waves of an ocean voyage. But you have said 
in your heart, this victory over dangers, this safe return, 
this joyous ending is better than all the sunshiny begin- 
ning. 

Some of you have seen a regiment go forth, in the dark 
and thrilling days of the past, in the service of their im- 
periled country, and as they lifted up their proud banner 
into the air, how gracefully its immaculate folds unfurled 
themselves to the breeze, and like a thing of life, throbbing 
above waves of inspiring music, you have watched it slowly 
vanish from sight ! After eventful months and anxious 
years you saw, it may be, that banner return. But oh, how 
unlike what it was on that proud morning of the regiment's 
departure ! Why did lips now quiver as strong men looked 
upon it and thoughts crowded the breast too big for words ! 
Why did that broken flag-staff, that tattered, smoke-be- 
grimed remnant of a flag send a thrill through your souls, 



196 THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 



that all its early beauty could not awaken? Ah, it had 
been tried ; it was now a record of suffering ! Every storm- 
stain, every tattered shred you looked upon was a heart- 
history of hunger and cold, of weary marches, of lonely 
watches, of battle groans, of flying shot, of dying men! Ah, 
friends, courage tried is better than courage untried. Pa- 
triotism, my friends, that has taken its life in its hand and 
gone down unmurmuringly into the fires of sacrifice, believe 
me, is something very different from patriotism that flaunts 
itself in swelling words! Yes, hang up the old flags, un- 
sightly though they be. Religiously preserve every tat- 
tered thread, for through flowing tears other generations 
shall look upon them, and bless God for the heroes that 
laid down their lives that the nation might not perish. And 
so, my friends, I cannot hesitate to think that religious 
character tried, is far better than religious character un- 
tried. I must think that Christian faith which God has 
called to pass through the fires of discipline is something 
far more precious in his sight than faith yet only in the bud 
of promise. 

One of the most beautiful sights to look upon in this fall- 
en world, I grant you, is a young Christian, a new convert, 
who has just laid off his burden at the cross, whose rejoic- 
ing tongue is just loosed to speak his Saviour's praises, his 
face beaming with a new-found hope, and his heart over- 



THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 197 



flowing with a peace the world knows nothing of. Yes, it 
is a beautiful sight to look upon in this dark world, and 
angels rejoice at the spectacle. And yet, as God searches 
and estimates character, I must think there is a more pre- 
cious sight in his eyes even than that. I think Job, perfect 
man as he was at the beginning, was even a more illustrious 
saint when God had laid his hand upon him. I think Job 
was right in his philosophy, when he said, "When he hath 
tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Where in all the 
annals of history can you point me to a sublimer spectacle 
than that upon which our eyes rest in the land of ancient 
Moriah, as we see that heroic old patriarch, father of all 
the faithful, without a murmur proceed to fulfil the mys- 
terious mandate of heaven: "Abraham: and he said, Be- 
hold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only 
son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of 
Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one 
of the mountains which I will tell thee of" ? What a scene 
followed! Not one protest of nature. Not one rebellious 
word from that bleeding father's heart. To the very letter, 
the command is fulfilled. "And Abraham stretched forth 
his hand, and took the knife to slay his son." Do you think 
that Abraham had gone through no preparatory schooling 
of faith before he was ready for obedience like that? Do 
you think that David needed to pass through no deep wa- 



198 THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 

ters before he was ready to say, "I was dumb, I opened 
not my mouth; because thou didst it"? Think you Peter 
was the same Christian when he followed Jesus to the judg- 
ment-hall, or when in the upper room, just before the be- 
trayal, he boldly said, "Lord, I am ready to go with thee, 
both into prison, and to death," as when, ten years after, 
he wrote his meek and comforting epistles to the persecuted 
Church of the Saviour? Ah, Peter needed a great deal of 
sifting before the chaff was separated from the wheat in his 
character. He needed to pour out many bitter tears before 
he fully knew himself. But, at last, if ever any man was 
qualified, gloriously, both by native character and by the 
fiery discipline of God's hand to address fit and sympathetic 
words to weak and tempted human hearts, it was this same 
old Christian hero, who toward the end of his apostleship 
penned these very words, "That the trial of your faith" 
— ah, Peter knew what that meant ! — "that the trial of 
your faith, being much more precious than of gold that 
perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto 
praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus 
Christ." 

It cannot be doubted, my friends, that ordinarily much is 
reckoned as faith which is not faith at all, but simply its 
counterfeit. How much of Christian character, that in a 
time of revival the Church accepts as genuine, and as 



THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 199 

promising precious fruit at length to the Master's cause, 
after a few months or years is found sadly wanting! "It 
dureth for a time, but having no root it withers away." 
Natural ardor of temperament, mere animal excitement, or 
forward zeal or sympathetic emotion, how often are they 
mistaken for the exercise of genuine faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ! How many begin the race, who do not finish it! 
How many putting their hand to the plow look fatally back ! 
You remember that incident of Naomi, in the opening 
chapter of the beautiful book of Ruth, how that after the 
death of husband and sons she decided to> leave the land of 
Moab and return to her native Judaea. By an etiquette 
of the country, she is accompanied for a distance on her re- 
turn by the two widowed wives of her dead sons, Orpah 
and Ruth. But at length a crisis comes, a testing-place is 
reached, where these two daughters-in-law must go back 
or go forward. "And," we read, "they lifted up their voices 
and wept again : and Orpah kissed her mother in law ; but 
Ruth clave unto her." Notice the difference : Orpah wept, 
kissed and forsook; but Ruth clave unto her, with a fidelity 
and self-surrender so absolute and grand, that the ringing 
words have come down all the generations since to put 
to shame all craven and half-hearted friendship : "Intreat 
me not to leave thee, or to return from following after 
thee : for whither thou goest, I will go ; and where thou 



200 THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 



lodgest, I will lodge ; thy people shall be my people, and 
thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there 
will I be buried : the Lord] do so to me, and more also, if 
ought but death part thee and me." 

How many to-day, alas, in the service of the heavenly 
Master are like "kissing Orpah," rather than like "cleaving 
Ruth" ! How many who begin with the shouting multitude 
to cry "Hosanna," at length when difficulty and opposition 
arise, when the yoke begins to gall, when the crowd begins 
to thin, when Gethsemane with its midnight loneliness, and 
Calvary with its noonday darkness, heave in sight, turn 
back and walk no more with the cross-bearing Saviour ! 

When one is truly converted and renewed by the grace 
of God, how little does any young Christian know what 
manner of spirit he' is until God in his providence has put 
him to the trial ! How much that with a young disciple is 
thought to be faith is something else — perhaps an instinct 
of courage, perhaps buoyancy of native disposition, perhaps 
the result of unshattered health. How many a Christian, 
in middle life and going forward successfully in the dis- 
charge of life's duties, mistakes his own energy of will, his 
own instinctive self-reliance for religious trust in God! 
While on a smooth sea, while his business prospers, while 
his health is sound, while the destroying angel passes by 
his dwelling and he never has been called to put his heart 



THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 201 

into an open grave — so long as the sun shines and 1 the sky 
is clear, his hope and his confidence in God are unwavering 
and jubilant. But let the scene change; let the sky darken; 
let night come on; let all God's billows roll over him; let 
Satan challenge the Almighty to put him to the test as he 
did Job and every worldly prop be struck from under him, 
ah, me, he will then find it a very different thing to have 
faith in the darkness from what it is to have faith in the 
sunshine — faith at shrouded midnight instead of blazing 
noonday ! 

"I thought but yesterday 
My will was one with God's dear will, 
And that it would be sweet to say, 
Whatever ill, 

My happy state should smite upon, 
'Thy will, my God, be done.' " 

"But I was weak and wrong, 

Both weak of soul and wrong of heart. 

And pride alone in me was strong, 

With cunning art — 

To cheat me in the golden sun, 

To say, 'God's will be done.' " 

"O shadow, drear and cold, 

That frights me out of foolish pride, 

0 flood, that through my bosom rolled 
Its billowy tide, 

1 said, till ye your power made known, 
'God's will, not mine be done.' " 

"Now, faint and sore afraid 
Under my cross, heavy and rude, 



202 



THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 



My idols in the ashes laid, 
Like ashes strewed — 
The holy words, my pale lips shun, 
O God, — Thy will be done.' " 

And yet there are those who have passed even this test 
and more than conquered. Have you never looked upon a 
beautiful Christian character, my friends, and envied the 
possession? If you have not, I have, and to me there is 
nothing so beautiful this side of heaven. Perhaps the lips 
have not always spoken in cultured accents; perhaps the 
shoulders were not always robed in silks; not always in 
ceiled houses or on broad avenues are these gems of God 
to be found; but wherever I have looked upon such a char- 
acter, even if in a hovel, with involuntary reverence, I have 
stood uncovered and said, "Here is heaven's royal blood." 
And I have said to myself, "Why may I not possess such a 
character? Why may not the ornament of such a spirit be 
mine? Why may not that radiance of patience, that inde- 
scribable sweetness of trust, that unmurmuring submission, 
now to drink every cup the heavenly Father places to the 
lips — why," I have said, "may not such a character be 
mine?" I did not know what I was asking. I did not 
count the cost of the blessing I sought. I did not look 
back to see all those furnaces, seven times heated, through 
which that character had passed before all its dross was 
consumed. 



THE TRIAL OF YOUR FAITH 203 

In a "great house," the apostle tells us, are vessels both 
of honor and dishonor. Shall we then shrink from His or- 
deal, if at last we may become "vessels unto honor" meet 
for the eternal banquet-table of our King? What matters 
then, my friends, the beginning, if the end is glorious? 
What matters the storms we encounter, if in the harbor safe 
at last? What matters the conflicts we go through, if at 
last on the sea of glass we stand with the countless multi- 
tude? Then shall we understand those victor-words of the 
onward-pressing apostle: "For I reckon that the suffer- 
ings of this present time are not worthy to be compared 
with the glory which shall be revealed in us." There faith 
shall end in sight. No more clouded pathways ; no more 
satanic bufferings. Hope shall change to fruition, prayer 
to praise, grace to glory, and in the temple of our God, we 
shall go no more out. "That the trial of your faith, being 
much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it 
be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor 
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." 



A LIVING HOPE 



"And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even 
as he is pure." — i John 3 : 3. 



A LIVING HOPE 



The hope here spoken of is that of the Christian, the hope 
of adoption through Christ into the family of God, and the 
heirship of heaven. "Beloved," says the apostle, "now are 
we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we 
shall be : but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall 
be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man 
that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is 
pure." 

It is not a rare thing, my friends, to possess a religious 
hope. Indeed, the non-possession of such a hope, I take 
to be the rare and exceptional fact among men. All reli- 
gions, ancient and modern, outside this revealed Word, are 
essentially optimistic in trend and character, providing a 
broad-gated paradise for all their nominal adherents, irre- 
spective of penitence or purity in heart and life. 

Did you enter any community to-day and question each 
individual you met, and did they consent to open to you 
frankly their inmost heart, I suspect not a single human 
being you would interrogate would be utterly destitute of 
a religious hope ; undoubtedly vague, indefinite, largely un- 
realized to their own minds, but not one seriously purpos- 



208 



A LIVING HOPE 



ing or expecting to fail of heaven. All false religionists 
cherish a firm hope of future salvation ; the Mohammedan, 
the Buddhist, the Romanist, every pagan idol-worshiper 
expects to reach at last that happy celestial land. 

It may be safely said, then, that hope is a universal in- 
stinct in the mind of man. 

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast; 
Man never is, but always to be blest" 

But not all hopes are genuine; not every bud of promise 
ripens into golden fruit. Many hopes are disappointed 
here. Can we believe it will be otherwise hereafter? The 
Bible speaks of a hope which shall enter into that within 
the veil, whose cable of indissoluble power enters into the 
unseen and eternal future; and it speaks also of a hope, 
which in the final trial shall be to its possessor as a "spider's 
web." 

Since hope, then, is so universal an occupant of the 
human breast, and moreover, since it assumes undeniably 
so many illusive forms, let us pause a moment, if you 
please, at the threshold of our subject to-day to analyze 
somewhat the nature of hope as an ordinary exercise and 
experience of the mind. In common speech the word is 
used, as we know, with varying significations. Often it 
means nothing more than "desire" or "wish." One cas- 
ually remarks, "I hope the weather may be fair on the mor- 



A LIVING HOPE 209 

row," that is, he wishes so, while the appearance of the sky, 
however, may be altogether unpropitious. "I hope that 
my friend, now sinking under the rapid inroad of some 
fatal disease, may recover his health and be spared to his 
friends," that is, I ardently and prayerfully desire such a re- 
sult. Meanwhile, the actual probabilities of the case may 
be as a thousand to one against me and the desires of my 
heart. 

Again, the word "hope" is often used not only with the 
simple meaning of desire, but united with this at other 
times we find a certain amount of impulsive or emotional 
expectation or confidence that the thing desired will take 
place. Now this emotional or pleasurable expectation, con- 
nected with desire, is probably the most distinguishing 
characteristic of hope — as an ordinary experience. Yet in 
this case, hope may be hardly more than a transient emo- 
tion. There may be in it a small sediment or basis of rea- 
son; but mostly it is the offspring of temperament born of 
impulsive or physical cheerfulness or natural excitability. 
It is the habit of some constitutions, as we say, to be hope- 
ful; with others to be despondent. Persons of sunny, ar- 
dent mercurial temperament, of healthy bodily condition, 
are elated easily; hence hope more easily than do some; 
while others having perhaps just as solid grounds, ab- 
stractly considered, for hoping, yet by reason of an unfor- 



210 



A LIVING HOPE 



tunate temperament, are filled only with distrust and fore- 
boding. Thus let any marked event occur of absorbing 
public interest, and straightway you will find nearly every 
community divided into two classes, ranging themselves in 
no small degree by the simple law of temperament. The 
one class looks on the bright side, the other on the "dark 
side the one class expectant, sanguine, enthusiastic, 
springing, it may be, at a bound to the most extreme con- 
clusions; the other class, cool, cautious, waiting ever by the 
mere force of habit for the "sober second thought." Thus 
by a simple difference in physical organization, by a mere 
accident of health, it may be, the very circumstances are in 
one mind producing hope and in another are producing 
doubt, the external occasion of these conflicting results be- 
ing in both cases precisely the same. 

Xow it will be evident to us all, I think at a glance, that 
when we come to examine the great Scriptural doctrine of 
religious hope, we must seek at once for some deeper and 
more abiding, radical principle underlying it than any we 
have yet found ; deeper than simple desire or emotional ex- 
pectation. But the moment we turn to this word as it lies 
on the inspired pages, we perceive instantly that it there 
covers a far broader territory of signification. Indeed, the 
word hope, in its highest and Scriptural sense, fathoms the 
very depths of our being. The keel of the word, if I may 



A LIVING HOPE 



211 



so speak, plows the profoundest under-currents of the ac- 
countable immortal soul of man. It involves the exercise 
of the reason. It governs the will. It draws into its wake 
all the most powerful affections of the heart and kindles, 
exalts and progressively purifies our whole undying Christ- 
redeemed manhood. Hope, then, as the Bible puts it, is 
not simply an emotion, but a principle; not simply a senti- 
ment, but a rudder of the life ; not simply a meteoric flash 
across the sky of the soul, but God's own eternal daylight 
dawning- within us. 

In the light, then, of what has now been said, let us turn 
our thought, for a moment more, to the great and para- 
mount question of personal religious hope in the soul. 

In common language, the beginning of the spiritual life, 
or "conversion," is often described as the obtaining of or 
indulging in a hope. Now, plainly, before a case of Chris- 
tian conversion, or the value of a religious hope can be de- 
cided, we must settle what kind of a hope has been obtained 
or indulged. If a mere desire to be saved, it is nothing 
more than was had before — nothing more than thousands 
have who make no pretention to a regenerated life. Such a 
hope may consist with entire absence of moral purity and 
with the most unmitigated selfishness of the daily life. But 
if this hope of which we speak goes further and embraces 
not only a desire, but also an emotional expectation of 



212 



A LIVING HOPE 



future blessedness, yet if it stops here, and furnishes us no 
other or deeper sign of genuineness, after all it may be a 
mere product of excitement, an outgrowth of temperament; 
the child of animal spirits, or temporary nervous elation; 
but born without any clear sense of the turpitude of sin, 
without any true heart-submission to God, or self-renounc- 
ing faith in the crucified Saviour of the world. More and 
more, my brethren, as the years of my ministry are thrown 
behind me, do I become convinced that a grave mistake 
has been committed by the Christian Church in time past 
in conceding the prominence so often conceded to the mere 
emotional or temperamental quality in religious experi- 
ence. So widespread is now the fruit of this mistake, that 
not a few accredited communicants in our churches hesitate 
not to indulge the belief that the genuineness of conver- 
sion, and indeed their own Christian standing, is to be de- 
cided mostly, if not wholly, by the amount of emotional or 
temperamental excitability through which they passed at 
some bygone period in the simple initial process of enter- 
ing the kingdom of God. 

Let me not be misunderstood. Emotion is not to be de- 
spised. Excitement, in my judgment, has its place in re- 
ligion. Nothing can be more natural, legitimate or Scrip- 
tural, than that a human soul, passing through the most 
wonderful experience it can know in the flesh, should be 



A LIVING HOPE 213 

stirred to its innermost depths. The danger is that in the 
reviewal of this marvelous experience, hope shall at length 
root itself, not in the substance but in the mere accidents 
of that great spiritual event. The danger is that unwit- 
tingly we foist some attendant emotion or excitability, 
worthless in itself, into the place of genuine conversion and 
true heart-surrender to God. 

I regret to believe that the number is not small who now 
base nearly all their evidence of personal Christian charac- 
ter on the naked fact that at the time of their conversion, 
so-called, they came out bright and clear in their hope. 
Perhaps some sudden and powerful transition of feeling 
was experienced, some great light seen, or some imagined 
voice was heard, or some strange happiness suddenly 
flooded the mind, like sunlight after a storm. And on this 
temporary and now long-past emotional experience they 
build to-day all their hope of heaven. My friends, in faith- 
fulness to this Word which shall try us all at last, and to 
the teachings of Him who was set for the fall and rising 
again of many in Israel, I must say, if your hope and mine 
rests on no other foundation than this, the billows of yon- 
der trial-day will sweep it from us like sand. 

Nothing can be more unwise, in my judgment, than im- 
plicit reliance on a mere transient, purely phenomenal ex- 
perience like that. These emotions in which we trusted 



214 



A LIVING HOPE 



may have been the accompaniment of genuine conversion 
and they may not. Just there lies the danger. At best 
they are but incidents and accidents of the physical tem- 
perament and nearly as often accompany religious exer- 
cises confessedly spurious as those which are genuine. 

Tested, then, by Christ's supreme rule of life-fruitfulness 
and of abiding heart-consecration to God, how often would 
it seem as though religious hopes had been obtained very 
much as men procure life-preservers, when about to take a 
voyage at sea, not as something to be put to instant use, 
carried constantly by the side, or treasured sacredly about 
the person, a help, a staff or a solace, all the changing jour- 
ney over, but something when obtained to be laid aside, 
there to lie unmolested and unthought of against some 
last extremity! If some terrible storm at length arise, and 
everything else on shipboard shall go to pieces, then the 
life-preserver is hunted up, found perhaps out of repair, 
uninflated, but forced into the best service possible under 
the circumstances. How many Christian hopes when pro- 
cured are laid away, apparently never designed for use, un- 
less in some last peril, perhaps on a death-bed! Ah, my 
friends, believe me, a hope good for nothing only on a 
death-bed, will be good for nothing then! As you value 
your undying happiness, trust such a hope not an hour. 
Throw it overboard at once. It will play you false in the 



A LIVING HOPE 



215 



last desperate trial. Rather, dear brethren, should our 
Christian hope be like the noble ship on which we sail, car- 
rying us gallantly and gloriously through sunshine and 
storm alike; ever full-rigged and caulked and manned, our 
pride, our trust, our glory, on the great voyage of life, un- 
til our anchor we cast at last in the eternal haven. 

Now what says our text? "And every man that hath this 
hope in him purineth himself." That is the Scriptural test 
of a religious hope. It is the only test safe to apply. If 
your Christian hope is genuine it will carry this unfailing 
mark. Every other mark is delusive. It will be a purify- 
ing hope. It will be an active, living, operative hope at this 
present moment, and will be growing fuller, deeper, brighter 
to the very end of our course. 

A hope to be worth anything must be living. A hope 
alive once, but dead now, is worth nothing now. A hope 
alive ten, twenty years ago, but dead to-day, if such a sup- 
position can be made, no more can feed my soul to-day 
than food taken into the body years ago can support ani- 
mal life to-day, if no nutriment has since been taken. Of 
all dead things, dead hopes are worthless. Yet how many 
are preserving them! What if you saw a farmer, with an 
orchard of dead fruit-trees, the sap gone, the bark dry, not 
a sign of vitality left, but occasionally, perhaps once a year, 
going among his trees, digging at the roots, pouring on 



2l6 



A LIVING HOPE 



water, enriching the soil! Year after year he continues this 
process, but not a leaf, not a blossom, not a bud starts. 
What would you think of such a method of horticulture as 
that? What would be said of such folly? Is it greater than 
that of scores and scores to-day, who are laboriously nurs- 
ing defunct religious hopes, out of which all spiritual vital- 
ity has manifestly departed, if indeed they had any at the 
beginning? Would it not be better to dig up the old hope 
and get a new one and, if possible, one that under the light 
of God's face and the refreshing dews of his Spirit, shall 
bring forth unto the praise and glory of his name? "And 
every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, 
even as he is pure." 

Without pursuing the subject into other lines of develop- 
ment, the topic as already opened brings us, I think, a two- 
fold lesson, a lesson of caution and a lesson of encourage- 
ment. To some within the ranks of nominal discipleship to 
Christ, this subject should come, I must think, with words 
of salutary admonition. To those naturally ardent, impul- 
sive, imaginative, excitable, the danger evidently lies in 
the direction of superabundant feeling and sensibility; too 
much emotion, beyond what is crystallized directly into 
character; beyond what is rooted immediately in conduct 
and utilized by the conscience and the will. Emotion in 
a man, I hold to be like steam in an engine, good, just so 



A LIVING HOPE 



217 



far as it drives the wheels and propels the machinery; but 
bad, just so far as it overstrains the boiler, and simply hisses 
and screams through all the joints and leakages. Emotion 
is good just so far as it is the parent of deeds, the servant of 
principle and the driving power behind a consecrated and 
consistent life; not one whit further. Hence with fervid and 
impetuous natures, the danger ever is, as I look at it, con- 
stitutionally of hoping too readily in religion as in all other 
matters. Hence the superlative need with all such of rig- 
orous and unintermitting scrutiny and self-examination, 
lest hope be found at last to have been fed, not from the 
deep and ever-flowing fountain-head of new-born love to 
Christ, but from the mere surface-streams of natural feel- 
ing and carnal excitability. 

But, on the other hand, my subject to-day should min- 
ister, I am confident, help and comfort to many downcast 
and burden-bearing hearts. True, it is desirable for a Chris- 
tian to be unvociferonsly happy, but to my mind, as I read 
the Bible, it is not indispensable. At least, there are marks 
of religious salvability immeasurably more indispensable. It 
is the tendency and glorious design, I admit, of religion to 
make the soul possessing it happy, just as it is the tendency 
and design of the sun God has hung above us, to bathe this 
earth with uninterrupted sunshine. But there are mists, 
clouds, exhalations arising at times from the earth itself, 



2l8 



A LIVING HOPE 



which, in part, defeat the beneficent purpose of the sun. 
God's grace in a human soul tends ever to fill and flood 
that soul with ineffable joy. But in this life, alas, are 
human infirmities, mortal nerves, clouded brains, weak 
human hearts. No, my fellow pilgrim, not all that upward 
toiling way shall you and I walk in sunshine. Shadows will 
mottle our path. So far, indeed, as in us lies, our duty, our 
royal privilege is evermore to hope and rejoice in the Lord 
of our salvation. But, after all, let me tell you, there is 
something better in this world than even Christian jubila- 
tion. Shall I tell you what it is? Christian steadfastness, 
Christian humility, Christian obedience. We shall have 
time enough in heaven for ecstasy. On earth we want serv- 
ice. We shall have all eternity to wear the crown in; on 
earth we want to be God's children, patiently and unfalter- 
ingly bearing the cross after our suffering Lord, whether 
it be to the transfigured mountain-top or through Geth- 
semane and up blood-tracked Calvary; whether it be in 
darkness or whether in sunlight. And let me say to you, 
a test like that to-day of your hope and mine, if we possess 
it, is worth more to us as a sign that God accepts and seals 
us as his children than all the mere emotional transports 
that have thrilled all the Church from righteous Abel down- 
ward. 

Measured then, by simple emotion, all Christian expe- 



A LIVING HOPE 



219 



riences widely differ. The difference began at conversion. 
Did you ever know two conversions just alike? In an ex- 
perience of twenty-five years, I never have. There is the 
same Spirit, but a diversity of operations. One conversion 
is signalized, it may be, by great and billowy tides of feel- 
ing, mighty throes of struggle. Other conversions are 
calm, reflective, attended with hardly any conscious emo- 
tion. And, as a matter of fact, it must now be said that 
some of the most satisfactory and fruit-bearing conver- 
sions the Church has ever known have been so silent and un- 
impassioned in their character that even the renewed heart 
itself could not decide within weeks and months, perhaps 
years, the exact time at which was wrought the marvelous 
visitation of God's regenerating Spirit. For one, I am grow- 
ing into the conviction, brethren, I confess, that those con- 
versions have quite as high a claim to the Church's confi- 
dence, where there is reflection, a Bible-educated conscien- 
tiousness, a calm, dispassionate decision for God, as where 
a high-wrought excitability is the predominating character- 
istic. So, after conversion, constitutional peculiarities con- 
tinue to follow the Christian. One Christian is a singing 
Christian from the start ; he is nearly always on the mount. 
Another is part of the time, very high on the mount, and 
part of the time very low in the valley. And some poor 
saints of God, alas, hardly once get on the mount in a life- 
time. 



220 



A LIVING HOPE 



Now these superficial, temperamental differences which 
we magnify so much, I apprehend are not so much es- 
teemed by the infinite Father of all. I cannot think they 
weigh so much in the scales of his omniscient judgment. I 
cannot believe they have so much to do with our real soul- 
character in his sight. After all, they are very much a mat- 
ter of physical health or disease. As infallible signs of 
piety, or its absence, they are never to be unqualifiedly 
trusted. 

Great stress, moreover, is laid by many on death-bed ex- 
periences, on the closing scenes of life. True, to the eye of 
affection, it is blessed to see heaven stoop to earth, to meet 
an expiring saint and halo his humble pillow with heaven's 
own light, ere he wings his way to unfading glory. As a 
testimony to the world of God's all-conquering grace it is 
valuable ; but as a gauge of Christian character it must not 
be overestimated. Some of the holiest men, who have 
lived and walked with God, have entered Jordan in dark- 
ness. It is glorious to see the setting sun burst through 
all clouds and light up the whole western horizon with one 
flaming line of fire. It is blessed to see a saint at the close 
of a faithful life enter heaven, as under a triumphal arch, 
while we catch the angel voices shouting beyond. But, 
with all the gorgeousness, it is still better to have a sun 
shining at noonday than at nightfall. A clear day is better 



A LIVING HOPE 



221 



than a cloudless sunset. My brethren, a triumphant life is 
better even than a triumphant death. Oh, when my soul 
shall stand in judgment, give to me the record of a life ever 
loyal to my Master and I will not ask you for death-bed 
raptures; for shall not all eternity be filled with rapture? 
What is a moment more or less in the river, when the ocean 
is beyond! 

And now, my friends, I have but a word to add. If the 
religious hope we cherish to-day be simply an instinctive 
carnal desire to escape future evil, or if it be only an un- 
founded, irrational impulse of temperament, borrowing all 
its confidence from the ashes of some past experience, but 
with no governing power over our life to-day, we may be 
sure it is not a hope which will anchor our souls in safety 
in the swellings of Jordan. It is not a hope that will open 
to our expectant gaze the Gate of Endless Life. 

Brethren, what is our "hope"? I do not ask whether 
yours to-day is a bright hope, or a dark hope; a sunny hope, 
or a clouded hope; a jubilant hope, or a desponding hope. 
In my judgment it matters little. I would fain know if you 
have a hope that is standing sentinel at the helm of your 
life, and that is more and more emancipating your soul 
from the power of sin and the dominion of the god of this 
world ! Have you a Christian hope that makes you an 



222 



A LIVING HOPE 



honest business man? Is yours a hope that makes you 
more like Christ? — more loving, gentle, patient, forgiving, 
benevolent? I would fain know if you have found a hope 
that leads you to the place of prayer; that draws you aside 
into secret communion with God; that prompts you to 
deny yourself, to crucify the flesh with all its affections and 
lusts and daily to take up your cross and to follow your 
Saviour wherever he leads the way? 

I do not ask when you were converted, or where, or how, 
or what have been your peculiar religious experiences. 
These matters may all have an interest, but in comparison 
with the great paramount questions I now propound, they 
sink out of sight. Are you a living Christian to-day? Are 
you on God's battle-field to-day? Are you standing up for 
Jesus to-day, your face to the foe, your back to the world? 
Or are your Christian garments world-soiled, your Chris- 
tian colors as a soldier of the cross trailing shamelessly in 
the dust? 

Oh, may God search us all to-day as with a candle, that 
we may know ourselves, that we may take our reckoning, 
that we may discover the great central drift of our lives and 
know whether our feet are taking hold on life or on death ! 
My dear friend, are you a living Christian to-day? I do 
not ask you what you have been in the past, but are you a 
living Christian to-day? And if not a living Christian to- 



A LIVING HOPE 



223 



day, what evidence have you, what evidence can you bring 
me, in all this Word of God, that you ever were one — that 
you were anything more than a still-born disciple or a self- 
deceived professor of religion? "And every man that hath 
this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 



"Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the 
heavenly vision." — Acts 26 : 19. 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 



There are three accounts, it will be remembered, of the 
conversion of Paul given us in "The Acts of the Apostles :" 
the first by Luke, the writer of this treatise, in the ninth 
chapter; the second by Paul himself, in the twenty-second 
chapter, as he stood upon the stairs leading from the tem- 
ple to the castle of Antonia, and just after he had been 
rescued from the mob by the chief captain of the Roman 
police; the third account in this twenty-sixth chapter, 
also given by Paul at Csesarea before King Agrippa, dur- 
ing the latter's congratulatory visit to Festus, the newly 
installed Roman governor. 

This third account differs in one important item from the 
other two. In the first two narratives, you will remember, 
after the fiery persecutor has fallen to the earth under the 
supernatural vision, he lifts the prayer to his expostulating 
Lord, "What wilt thou have me to do?" The reply is, 
"Go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must 
do." A devout disciple dwelling there, named Ananias, is 
instructed, also, in a vision, to go to the blinded and now 
penitent Pharisee, and laying his hand upon him, that he 
may receive his sight, communicate to him the great and 



228 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 



gracious truth that henceforth he is to be a chosen vessel 
unto his persecuted Saviour, to bear his name before the 
Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. But in this 
account before Agrippa, this episode of Ananias is wholly 
omitted, evidently for the sake of condensation, while ad- 
hering to essential truth. Paul's great apostolic commis- 
sion is here represented as conferred directly upon him by 
his manifested Lord, while he himself lies prostrate and 
trembling on the Damascus highway. "But rise, and 
stand upon thy feet ; for I have appeared unto thee for this 
purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of 
these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the 
which I will appear unto thee ; delivering thee from the 
people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, 
to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to 
light, and from the power of Satan unto God.'' "Where- 
upon," adds the manacled apostle, "O King Agrippa, I 
was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision : but shewed 
first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and 
throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gen- 
tiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do 
works meet for repentance." 

Before proceeding further, pausing for a moment right 
here, let me remind you that this vision of Paul was not 
his only one. In the very next chapter, the twenty-seventh, 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 229 



occurs his memorable vision on shipboard, when the dis- 
masted wheat vessel was driving helpless upon the rocky 
coast of Malta. An angel of God stood by him in the night 
saying, "Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before 
Caesar : and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with 
thee." Another vision of the apostle was at Troas ; an 
apparition of one clad in Macedonian garb who accosted 
him with the prayer, "Come over into Macedonia, and help 
us." But probably the most notable of all Paul's visions is 
recorded in his second letter to the Corinthians, where he 
is "caught up into the third heaven, whether in or out of 
the body he could not tell," and heard unspeakable words, 
not lawful for a man to utter. Lest he should be exalted 
above measure through these abundant revelations, he in- 
forms us, a thorn in the flesh was given him, a messenger 
of Satan to buffet him, lest he should be exalted above 
measure. Akin to this experience of Paul, it may be said 
in passing, was the vision granted the three disciples on 
the Mount of Transfiguration, when the Master's form put 
on a glistering whiteness, and in glorified conclave, Moses 
and Elias appeared talking with him. Peter, you remem- 
ber, on that occasion lost his head and foolishly suggested 
the erection of three tabernacles on that wind-swept moun- 
tain height, where these celestial visitants might perpetu- 
ally reside. 



230 CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 

Now, my friends, collating the several visions of Paul, 
and others similar found in the New Testament, and study- 
ing them all carefully, I think we are able to deduce from 
them this important lesson, namely, that a religious vision 
in nearly every instance is fraught with danger; tends to 
unhinge the mind of the beholder, ministers to spiritual be- 
wilderment and pride, whenever that vision becomes any- 
thing more than a naked vehicle for the direct communication 
of definite, intelligible and straightforward personal duty. 
A vision, then, which primarily feeds a love of the marvel- 
ous or excites prurient curiosity, or kindles emotional won- 
derment or begets a desire to scale heights of knowledge 
beyond the limits of written revelation — all such experi- 
ences it may be safely said, as a rule, are hostile to healthy 
Christian growth, and put in serious jeopardy the spiritual 
balance of the soul. 

Returning now to my text : "Whereupon, O King 
Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision," 
says this great and most illustrious convert of the early 
Church. What does he mean by that except that he gave 
''instantaneous heed''' to the transcendent personal mes- 
sage that then reached him? As related to that mes- 
sage, the flashing light, the audible voice, the rent sky, the 
unhorsed rider were only as illuminated capitals, heading the 
several paragraphs of that celestial communication, punc- 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 231 



tuating and intensifying its tremendous import. Christ's 
own words unmistakably teach this. "I have appeared unto 
thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness 
both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those 
things in the which I will appear unto thee." The paramount 
purpose, then, of this whole marvelous apparition which 
blazed athwart the raging persecutor's path was to commu- 
nicate to him, humbled, penitent and prayerful, his great 
commission as an apostle henceforward of his crucified 
Lord. In that momentous hour of his history he received 
direct from the pierced hands of his risen Saviour, his cre- 
dentials as a preacher thenceforth of his gospel. "I have 
appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a min- 
ister and a witness." 

I think, my friends, that light is thrown by this narrative 
on this vital question, namely, What constitutes a valid and 
sufficient evidence of Christian conversion? There is, un- 
questionably, a strong love in our nature for the marvelous, 
the extraordinary, the preternatural in human experience. 
Hence, in all ages, the religious instinct in man has been 
prone, largely, to feed itself on ecstasies and frames and 
visions and emotional exhilarations of one kind or another. 
This habit and bias of our nature has thus at times greatly 
colored the popular idea of gospel-conversion. The phe- 
nomenal incidents of conversion have been thought by many 



232 CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 

to be conversion itself. A person's conversion has been 
regarded as genuine and indisputable very much according 
to the amount of vivid and spectacular experiences that 
have entered into it. The current notion has often been 
something like this: for about so long a period the soul 
must grope in hopeless bewilderment beneath frowning 
Sinai, its ears filled with retributive thunders and abysmal 
depths yawning before it. When, with phantasmagorial 
suddenness the scene shifts, and light, out-dazzling the 
noon, floods all the chambers of the soul, and hope is born 
under the ribs of despair. Now I do not say, mark you, that 
experiences like these never occur, approximately, in mod- 
ern conversion. I simply now say, that they are not con- 
version itself. Their presence does not necessitate conver- 
sion. Their absence does not invalidate conversion. The 
one question to ask and the only question to ask is, Did the 
intercepted soul get its commission in that hour when it met 
its expostulating Lord on the highway of sin? Did it, or 
did it not, get its credentials as his minister and his witness? 
That point settled, and to my mind the whole question is 
settled of genuine or spurious conversion to God. 

My friends, religion is not a passing crisis or momentary 
exhilaration of the soul. We sometimes hear it said of a 
new convert that he has "experienced religion." My breth- 
ren, if truly I have entered upon the new life in God, and 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 233 

that path of the just which brightens to the end for my- 
self, I do not expect to "experience religion" until I have 
fought my last earthly battle, carried my last burden, over- 
come my last temptation, shed my last tear, uttered my last 
prayer and death is swallowed up in victory. Nor then will 
the ineffable "experience" cease, but through unending 
years, I expect to know more and comprehend more with 
all God's beatified saints of the height and depth and 
length and breadth of that love that passeth knowledge. 
Religion, as the New Testament teaches it, is not a spasm 
or cataclysm of the soul, but patient continuance in well- 
doing, by heaven's grace, unto the end. In my judgment, 
sound piety, stable character and practical godliness, as a 
rule, are not so much promoted as imperiled by the plac- 
ing large emphasis on transient and phenomenal experi- 
ences of any kind. For these reasons I incline to the opin- 
ion that disproportionate study given to the mere pictorial 
and prophetic portions of the Bible is, in most cases, at- 
tended with a peculiar mental hazard. These portions of 
sacred writ unquestionably have their legitimate use, but 
when one's mind becomes absorbingly interested, for ex- 
ample, in the visions of Daniel or Ezekiel or the unfolding 
seals of the Apocalypse of John, the temptation before such 
a student is, I must think, to know more of the "secret 
things which belong to God" than he intends any mortal 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 



shall know. The imagination is thus inflamed; pride of su- 
perior insight and foresight is fostered and the investigator 
at length imperiously dogmatizes concerning mysteries and 
truths into which shining angels around God's throne gaze 
with holy trepidation. I have not been so fortunate as to 
know those whose imaginations have been caught by the 
glamour of premillenarianism or visionary views of the 
speedy second coming of Christ, whose minds have not at 
length, to some extent, been unhorsed and thrown off their 
center of gravity by the down-streaming^ glare of such a 
faith. I freely admit the eminent piety, the profound sin- 
cerity and the burning zeal of many who adopt this method 
of literal, pictorial interpretation, and yet I am constrained 
to think that this whole style of thought and reasoning in- 
dicates a mental eccentricity and treachery of judgment that 
in time will welcome other vagaries and in the end be for- 
tunate if they do not collide with the whole accepted 
scheme of evangelical doctrine. 

Impressed by similar considerations, I am led to depre- 
cate the attempt, so often made, to be wise above what is 
written, concerning the future life, — the state of the de- 
parted. There is a natural desire and impulse with us all 
to follow our loved ones into the spirit-realm. We would 
fain know more of their glorified employment. We would 
rejoice to lift even the smallest fringe of the thick veil that 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 



235 



hides them from our sight. We long for some slightest 
channel of communication. At times we would give 
"worlds" to know if our dear departed ones consciously 
exist, if they still watch over us, if they cherish the old 
loves, and like ourselves, hunger for the blessed and im- 
mortal reunion. Desires and yearnings like these, I am 
sure, are not unknown to any heart now before me. And 
yet I am satisfied, after much thought on this point, that 
we know all about heaven it is best for us to know, and that 
is safe for us to< know, at present. We are not ignorant of 
the grievous mischiefs in demoralized character and ruined 
Bible-faith that have come to many in recent times through 
the unhallowed inquisitiveness of modern spiritualism. 
Greater light shed on heaven than we now have, I am con- 
vinced, would not so much nerve as unnerve our own mor- 
tal steps in reaching there; would overwhelm us with unin- 
telligible wonders, would stun and daze our minds, rather 
than steady and clarify them, as a too fierce sun-glare weak- 
ens and destroys the bodily vision. So, on the other side, 
it is often wondered that more vivid object-lessons are 
not given us of future retribution. But, you remember, 
when the rich man in the parable besought Abraham to 
send a messenger from Hades to warn his five brethren still 
on earth, the patriarch's reply was — a reply based upon the 
profoundest mental philosophy — "If they hear not Moses 



236 CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 

and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though 
one rose from the dead." An unconverted mind, then, un- 
influenced to-day by all the motives, moral, gracious, na- 
tional, Scriptural, focused upon it, would, in no proba- 
bility, be influenced by any amount of miraculous, phenom- 
enal, sensational or ghostly evidence that could possibly be 
brought to bear upon it. The parsimony of God's convert- 
ing energy in some directions is hardly less wonderful than 
its affluence in others. The silences of Scripture no less 
than its most adorable revelations attest an Author of infi- 
nite wisdom, skill, goodness, patience and grace. 

But, without further remark along this line of thought, 
and recapitulating in a brief word the main lesson of this 
narrative, I close. 

And first, from the hour of that wonderful scene, outside 
the Damascus gate, it stands forth on the forefront of 
Paul's entire ministry, that the one aim of his converted 
soul was instantly to transmute heavenly visions into prac- 
tical Christian duty — to obey Jesus Christ. He was a man 
of fervid temperament. He was a man of great emotional 
capacity. He was a man of profound insight and exalted 
foresight in religious things, yet with the old prophet he 
ever unflinchingly held, "To obey is better than sacrifice, 
and to hearken, than the fat of rams." He began his re- 
generated life with the prayer, "Lord, what wilt thou have 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 237 

me to do?" and he ended it with the triumphant affirma- 
tion, "I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith." 
That primal vision of his Commander hung on his steps to 
the end, as the pillar of cloud and flame led the Israelites, 
as the pole-star guides the mariner into the haven. And at 
any point in that career of more than twenty years of in- 
comparable achievement and toil for Christ, might he not 
have challenged the attention of a gainsaying world with 
his declaration before Agrippa, "I was not disobedient unto 
the heavenly vision"? 

We learn from Scripture study to-day, the essential 
thing, what is the very marrow and kernel of true conver- 
sion — not a blazing sky, not sightless eyeballs, not a ter- 
rified cavalcade over meteorological wonders of any kind — 
but the Master's voice, distinctly heard by the listening 
soul in that solemn natal hour, setting it apart to a life of 
service for him. "For this purpose I have appeared to 
make thee a minister and a witness." 

We may begin our Christian course with a bright hope 
or a dark one ; with a conscious change of heart, or an un- 
conscious one ; with joy and outbursting gladness or with 
self-distrust and bitter humiliation and satanic bufferings, 
as we slowly grope our way toward the cross. We may 
enter the kingdom of life, as did Paul, through the fiery 
portal of a miraculous interposition, or, like the Philippian 



2 3 8 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 



jailor, amid earthquake shocks and midnight terrors; or 
contrariwise, like Lydia of Thyatira, whose heart the Lord 
opened while attending the Word — born of the Spirit of 
light and love and grace, quietly and gently, it would seem, 
as a summer rose opens its petals to the sun; or as the child 
Samuel, for whom Hannah prayed, and John the Baptist, 
forerunner of Christ, were sanctified from the womb. 
These phenomenal differences are unessential, but, breth- 
ren, it is essential that when we find Jesus we find our com- 
mission, the touch of his pierced Hand on our souls, anoint- 
ing us thenceforward to a life of ministering and witness- 
ing for him. "But rise and stand upon thy feet : for I have 
appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a min- 
ister and a witness. . . Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was 
not disobedient unto the heavenly vision : but showed first 
unto them of Damascus." Not even did he wait to get 
back to Jerusalem to consult an oculist about his eyes, and 
recover somewhat his nervous tone, and get some pri- 
mary instruction from the apostolic college, that he might 
begin his public labors judiciously. The holy impulse was 
too strong : "But showed first unto them of Damascus, and 
at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judsea, and 
then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to 
God, and do works meet for repentance." As the converted 
engineer began with the fireman, and the fireman with the 



CHRISTIAN CONVERSION 239 

brakeman, and the brakeman with the conductor, until the 
sacred flame shimmered and blazed along the whole flying 
train, so from that Damascus cradle of his new; life, Paul's 
irrepressible passion for souls worked outward and onward 
until it reached the farthest accessible outpost of human sin 
and need in his own generation. And what a record, my 
brethren, at last, of service for the risen Christ : "Obedient 
-unto death," we might write over his whole apostleship! 



PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 

"And Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent 
toward Sodom." — Gen. 13: 12. 



PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 



You are all familiar with the Scripture history preceding 
this biographical incident. Lot, the son of Haran, and the 
nephew of Abram, on the death of his father united his for- 
tunes, we are told, with those of his more renowned uncle, 
and migrated with the latter when he went forth at God's 
command to seek the land of promise. Reaching at length 
on their journey the destined land of Canaan, after a brief 
sojourn a grievous famine drives the whole party south into 
Egypt. Here, after some disagreeable complications with 
Pharaoh, the Egyptian king, the patriarch is forced to 
return to Canaan. Lot still accompanies him. And now 
uncle and nephew take up their joint abode in the sterile 
mountain-regions around Bethel. In process of time both 
parties become rich, and ere long, as might have been ex- 
pected, a strife is kindled between the herdmen of their 
adjacent flocks. 

At this point Abram's character shines nobly forth as the 
first great peacemaker in history. "And Abram said unto 
Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and 
thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen ; for we 
be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate 



244 PITCHING ONE'S TEXT TOWARD SODOM 



thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left 
hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the 
right hand., then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up 
his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was 
well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sod- 
om and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like 
the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot 
chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east; 
and they separated themselves the one from the other. 
Abraham dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in 
the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom." 
And now straightway is added this pregnant and foreshad- 
owing sentence : ''But the men of Sodom were wicked and 
sinners before the Lord exceedingly." 

The more we contemplate the character of Lot, as 
sketched upon the sacred pages, the more perplexing and 
enigmatical his whole history becomes, and were we left to 
judge him simply by his record as found in the book of 
Genesis, I apprehend our minds would be left seriously 
wavering as to the precise rank to accord him in the scale 
of moral integrity. But turning to the New Testament, 
we find that an inspired apostle endorses him as a "just 
man," and as one who, while a resident of Sodom, "vexed 
his righteous soul from day to day with their unnlawful 
deeds." This testimony, to my mind, turns the scales. In 



PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 245 

the light of such evidence we must assume that the char- 
acter of Lot was substantially and savingly upright ; never- 
theless it is not to be concealed that this character was 
marred by the gravest defects. 

Beyond a question he was constitutionally a selfish man. 
This was shown by his whole conduct toward his mag- 
nanimous uncle. It is more than hinted that he took secret 
part with his own servants in brewing the original quarrel, 
and without even a show of courtesy or gratitude he 
grasped at once at the lion's share in the division of ter- 
ritory suggested by Abraham. That he was weak in reli- 
gious principle is clear from his choice of residence, unhesi- 
tatingly made among a people whose reputation for high- 
handed wickedness was already notorious. Yet with these 
abatements we must hold that the leaven of grace was in 
him, and though worldly-wise and feeble-hearted, at bot- 
tom he was a true believer. For though God in his retribu- 
tive providence called him to suffer one uninterrupted 
series of disasters for his first wrong step, yet when the 
godless cities of the plain were ripe at last for destruction, 
ere the rain of vengeance fell the escape of Lot was en- 
sured, though stripped of nearly everything but life — saved, 
yet so as by fire. 

In thus taking a rapid survey of the life of this man, and 
all the calamities which overtook him at last and his ill- 



246 PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 

fated family, it is not difficult, I think, to trace the whole 
brood of misfortunes back to a single starting-point, — 
that first inexcusable and fatal misstep, when, as a servant 
of God, a professedly religious man, for the sake of mere 
temporal advantage, he consented to pitch his tent toward 
Sodom. That one unwarrantable compromise with sin be- 
came the bitter fountainhead of lifelong misery and well- 
nigh proved his irreparable ruin. It appears from the nar- 
rative, as we now examine it, that when Lot first jour- 
neyed into the valley of the Jordan and drew near the 
doomed cities of the plain he carried his tent with him. 
It is quite probable that at first he had no design of enter- 
ing into full traffic and intercourse with those ungodly 
people. He did not, you observe, at first, enter their mu- 
nicipal limits at all. He began by simply pitching his tent 
toward Sodom. Doubtless he thought this would be an 
entirely possible method — to drive an occasional sharp bar- 
gain with these wealthy sinners, but meanwhile avoid all 
personal contact, and thus receive no serious moral dam- 
age. 

But it is not long before the migratory tent disappears. 
Lot is dwelling in Sodom and has taken a house. He is a 
naturalized citizen, and on terms of full communion with 
his neighbors. He has taken to himself, in all probability, 
a Sodomitish wife and is rearing a family of Sodomitish 



PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 247 

children. His daughters ere long intermarry with Sodom- 
itish households, and at length all his worldly interests are 
fully identified with the city of Sodom. And so strong 
do his local attachments become, that after the noted bat- 
tle with the four northern kings, in which Sodom with the 
other cities of the plain was subjugated, and Lot with all 
his goods carried into captivity, but at last rescued by the 
timely bravery of Abraham, he returns, we are told, to 
the ill-fated city, as if hopelessly joined to its fortunes. And 
thus to the end we find him, a confirmed citizen of Sodom 
until the wretched city's cup is full and the deluge of fiery 
wrath bursts from the sky. Then he flies for his life. He 
takes refuge in a cave, with no surroundings now of worldly 
luxury; without house or tent or swarming flocks or cov- 
eted riches; with only the shattered remnant of a once 
proud family, the curtain of history forever drops upon 
this unfortunate man. 

The career of Lot, my friends, as thus delineated in 
Scripture, I must think is not wholly without its lessons 
for our own times. On the whole, as I have said, Lot is to 
be regarded as a good man, yet his whole religious char- 
acter was compromised and his whole earthly life embittered 
by one fatally unwise step at the beginning. He made the 
mistake, a mistake made by many a servant of God since, 
of thinking it possible to live in Sodom without sooner or 



248 PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 



later coming to harm; in other words, of thinking it pos- 
sible to maintain the power of personal godliness un- 
eclipsed in his soul and then with unrestrained greed throw 
himself into the race for worldly acquisitions. Beyond a 
question the Scriptures teach that there is both a right and 
a wrong way for God's children to hold intercourse with 
this world. No one will deny that the whole force of our 
Saviour's example and teachings was against any monas- 
tic separation of his own disciples from the world in which 
they lived. "I pray not," he said to his Father, "that thou 
shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou 
shouldest keep them from the evil." Plainly, then, it is the 
will of the Great Husbandman, that the wheat and the tares 
grow together until the harvest. 

But now, if I mistake not, this is the one vital point in 
question: How are God's children to fellowship this world? 
What said Christ to his followers? "Ye are the light of the 
world." That explains the whole. We are not to abandon 
the world and bury ourselves in convents and monasteries 
and social exclusiveness. We are to remain in the world. 
But how? As the world's "light" and spiritual exemplars. 
Now, God does not set up his Church in this world grad- 
ually to blend and melt itself away into the society of the 
world, so that, at last, you cannot tell where the seam runs, 
where the Church ends and where the world begins. But 



PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 249 



he puts his redeemed Church into this apostate world ever- 
more to dispel surrounding darkness. God's people, then, 
and the world's people, as I understand it (being somewhat 
of an old-fashioned Bible student), are to remain as dis- 
tinct and unblending and invincible in all spiritual char- 
acteristics as light is distinct from darkness — and what can 
be more so? 

Now it is true that our sinless Saviour when on earth 
incurred reproach from hypocritical men, because he 
openly associated with the impure, with publicans and sin- 
ners. But how did he associate with them? What was 
the associative tie that drew the immaculate Son of God 
into fellowship with the unclean and the guilty? Was it 
his lower nature or his higher nature? Was it his appetite 
nature, his fleshy nature, his self-pleasing nature, or his 
divinely compassionate and infinitely unselfish nature? 
My friends, it makes all the difference conceivable whether 
you and I fellowship this sinful world through our higher 
sympathies or through our lower sympathies; whether 
we are drawn to its companionship as world-lovers and 
sense-pleasers, or as self-denying and cross-bearing dis- 
ciples of our crucified Lord. It is plain that Lot went to 
Sodom from a low motive, an unworthy motive. The 
whole story indicates it. "He lifted up his eyes," we read, 
"and saw the well-watered valley and the fertile pastures of 



250 PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 

Sodom and Gomorrah, rich as the very garden of the 
Lord/' and the sight was too much for him. He decided 
instantly to sink every other consideration in prospect of 
such remarkable material advantages. He did not mean 
to give up his religion. Oh, no; he meant to keep that — at 
least enough to save his soul, and yet not enough seriously 
to embarrass him as a money-maker. Therefore, he built 
no altar to the Lord. The first thing Abraham did, you 
remember, when he went to Bethel and afterwards, when 
he went to Hebron, was to build an altar to the Lord. But 
Lot built no altar when he went to Sodom. It would have 
been mere mockery if he had been going there with a 
worldling's motive. And yet, I suspect, in the main he de- 
signed to live a very correct life, and set a very good ex- 
ample before those outrageous sinners of the plain. To 
be sure, he went among them to get rich. That was his 
foremost thought, but, that object secured, we cannot 
doubt that he was quite willing to exert incidentally all 
the religious influence he could. Very generous of Lot! 
But those Sodomites were not fools. They saw at a 
glance what was really uppermost and undermost in 
Lot's heart. They saw that, although professedly a serv- 
ant of the living God and a believer in unseen realities, 
practically he was just as selfish and world-greedy as the 
best of them; and that whenever God's honor and his 



PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 251 



own private interests clashed, he was just as quick to pre- 
fer temporal advantage to treasures laid up in heaven, as 
any of them. When the Sodomites saw that, what further 
religious influence, do you think, could he have over them? 
When they saw it written all over his covetous life, the 
world First and God second, what was his religious example 
good for? 

The truth is, my friends, as a religious man, Lot began 
life all wrong. He made a fatal concession to the world 
to start with, and to his dying day he never recovered the 
vantage-ground he then surrendered. Lower and lower he 
sank toward Sodom. He never succeeded in bringing Sodom 
up to his own level. Although he spent a long life in that 
iniquitous city, it nowhere appears that he exerted the least 
saving influence upon it, or postponed, for one day, the 
terrible doom that finally devoured it. Just this great mis- 
take, then, let me repeat, Lot made as a religious man. He 
thought it possible to carry along in his own breast two 
parallel lives, but lives which the God of the Bible has de- 
clared to be forever and eternally antagonistic to each 
other; the life of a worldling and the life of a devoted and 
successful worker for God. The union is impossible, and 
I think Lot himself was satisfied of it at last. And yet how 
many are attempting it after him — how many professing 
disciples of Jesus Christ to-day seem making just this des- 



252 PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 



perate experiment — as to how much of the world they can 
grasp with one hand, and not let go of heaven with the 
other ! They have obtained a religious hope, and they do 
not mean to part with that; but their whole after-study 
seems to be, What is the very lowest premium for which 
they can ensure it? What is the very lowest bid the Al- 
mighty will receive for the pearl of great price? Their whole 
anxiety seems to be, not how much they can do for Jesus, 
but how little; not how much of the world they can re- 
nounce for his blessed sake, but how much they can keep, 
and yet pluck at last their starveling souls from the jaws of 
perdition. 

My friends, I think I have seen Christians starting in on 
this experiment, and a down-hill experiment it is to the 
end. Our attention perhaps is first arrested by a kind of 
change coming over the devotional fervor of some brother, 
noticed perhaps at a testimony meeting, a prayer meeting. 
For some unexplained reason this brother is less spiritual 
than formerly. Soon we notice his seat frequently vacant 
at the weekly gathering. Then, not unlikely, his attend- 
ance ceases altogether. But if at this juncture we should 
seek him out, we should find that he has not given up his 
religion, oh, no; but his business has become very press- 
ing. He is making a great deal of money and is very tired 
at night. But then he still designs to be very generous to- 



PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 253 



ward the church and toward the minister and toward the 
heathen. And so he throws a sop to his conscience, pre- 
serves his hope, and gives his heart to the world. Oh, my 
friends, when I see a Christian brother entering on this 
down grade, I weep over him, and I feel like going to him 
and saying, My dear brother, you are pitching your tent 
toward Sodom. It is a dangerous way for a man's tent to 
face. I beseech you, be warned in time. 

And if I mistake not, there is yet another way in which 
modern Christians and modern Christianity is often seen 
pitching its tent in the direction of Sodom, and with about 
the success that Lot had. There are those in our time who 
say, We must win over the unconverted world to Christ by 
meeting it part way. We must adroitly and judiciously 
keep out of sight the more disagreeable and repellent as- 
pects of our religion. To be sure, ours is a religion of the 
Cross, and crosses are not apt to be very welcome things 
to worldly hearts in any shape. But then, if we can wreathe 
them around with flowers, and cover up their unsightly 
angles and blood-stains and nail-prints, perhaps we can 
make them rather attractive things, after all, to self-indul- 
gent and worldly minds; and perhaps they will become 
Christians almost before they know it. The world-renounc- 
ing and self-denying notions entertained by Christ and his 
apostles and the early Christians, are altogether too anti- 



254 PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 

quated for our modern age. We have found a more excel- 
lent way. Religion is a very cheerful thing. Christians 
are a very happy people, and very liberal withal, and inof- 
fensive in their views. They are quite willing to meet sin- 
ners half way and show them what a sweet and beautiful 
thing religion is. 

My dear friends, one word just here. And first, I beg 
you to remember that when, as a professing Christian, you 
propose to convert this world .to God by meeting it half 
way, all the meeting will be on your side — the whole 
of it. The world will not budge one inch. All the conces- 
sion made, you must make. You may go down to the 
world's level — the world will never come up one hair's 
breadth toward your level by any such expedient. To be 
sure, by your unauthorized conduct, to some extent, you 
may succeed in drawing the world's fire of open-mouthed 
raillery and opposition to religion, but how will you do it? 
I will tell you. By striking the King's colors to the enemy; 
by betraying the Son of God afresh in the house of his 
friends. That is the way you will do it. The world will 
applaud you. Certainly it will. It will probably court your 
society. Why? Because it has found out that it can use 
you as a tool and as a screen. But in its heart of hearts it 
despises you and brands you deserter from the Lord's 
army. 



PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 255 

And now let me ask, What religious influence will you 
probably exert over an irreligious companion or neighbor 
or friend? When that companion, friend or neighbor sees 
you on his or her own level, just as world-absorbed, just 
as pleasure-seeking, giving days and nights with just as 
keen a zest to worldly amusements as the most worldly, 
and apparently just as thoughtless of eternal realities as 
the most thoughtless around you, I would like to enquire 
what amount of religious influence over the unconverted 
you will probably exert after that? I will tell you. Just 
about the same that Lot exerted in Sodom — no more; per- 
haps no less. I tell you, my friends, when the devil finds 
a Christian on his own lawful territory he claims himself 
the whole of him and all his influence. 

When I see a Christian believer in our day, seeking or 
accepting a lifelong alliance, in express violation of the 
Word of God,, with an unbelieving soul — impelled to the 
uncovenanted union by mere prospect of worldly advan- 
tage, yet propitiating wounded conscience with the hope 
that spiritual good may at length accrue to the unbelieving 
party; when I see such a sight, I say to myself, Yonder is 
a Christian man, or a Christian woman, pitching his or her 
tent toward Sodom. It is an unauthorized and a dangerous 
venture. When I see Christian parents adopting a line of 
education for their children, which from first to last exalts 



256 PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 



the body above the undying spirit, oh, I mourn and say, 
There are tents pitched Sodomward. Well will it be if im- 
mortal interests are not sacrificed thereby. When the 
whole burden of home training says to an irrepressible 
child, "The world first and God afterwards," "The body 
first and the soul next," "A good settlement in life, and 
then the shining mansions of heaven;" when accomplish- 
ments, comradeships, associations and amusements are 
hazarded and encouraged, known, just as well before as af- 
ter, to stand directly in the way of all spiritual thoughtful- 
ness and of the soul's conversion to God, oh, I "remember 
Lot's wife" and that unhappy family for the most part per- 
ishing in the doomed city. 

Brethren, I may not prolong. The whole doctrine on 
this subject may be summed up in a sentence. Hear it from 
the lips of Christ. "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." 
"Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he 
hath, he cannot be my disciple." "Come out from among 
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not 
the unclean thing." 

My friends, there is an hour of retrospection at hand. 
There is an hour coming when you and I shall gaze back- 
ward on life, and then this world will dwindle. Believe me, 
when the glaze of death is on our vision, it will comfort 
us little to remember that we lived all our days a respect- 



PITCHING ONE'S TENT TOWARD SODOM 257 



able, easy-going, world-conforming Christian life; that we 
have amassed property and lived in luxury and managed to 
serve the God of heaven soi adroitly as to give no offense 
to the god of this world; and that our neighbors, as they 
witnessed our life, were undetermined even to the last upon 
which world we had the stronger hold, for we seemed to 
them to have an eye continually to the main chance in both 
worlds. Ah, in that hour such a religious retrospection 
will give us little comfort ! But, then, one cross borne for 
Jesus' sake, one unhallowed temptation resisted in his 
name, one worldly pleasure cheerfully surrendered for his 
honor, will weigh more in our esteem than a thousand 
worlds like this! Brethren, be not deceived; the god of 
this world is a hard master to serve, and never a Christian 
but found it so in the end. 

Let us, then, beware of beginnings. It is the first step 
that costs — the first ignominious lowering of our Christian 
colors before the onpressing hosts of anti-Christ. Let us 
beware how we are ashamed of Jesus, and of his Word in 
this adulterous, modern generation. Better, far better to 
dwell forever with faithful Abraham in the sterile moun- 
tains of Canaan, if God's altar is there, than with covetous 
Lot to go down into the very fattest pastures of wicked- 
ness, if God's blessing and God's smile we must leave be- 
hind. 



THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 



"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." — John 7 : 17. 



THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 



The word doctrine in its primary use directs our attention 
to a special department of truth. The word indicates a pe- 
culiar type or phase of truth, generally some truth as ap- 
plied or fitted to be applied to human conduct. A doctrine, 
then, I take to be a given teaching, set forth in such terms, 
and after such a method, that it can be put into actual 
practice by the pupil who learns it. This plainly cannot be 
predicated of all truths. Hence we do not ordinarily say, 
a doctrine of astronomy or a doctrine of geology or a doc- 
trine of mathematics. More naturally and correctly we 
say, a truth or a principle of astronomy, or mathematics, 
because these purely scientific truths have no direct, neces- 
sary and exclusive application to human conduct. 

But entering the sphere of morals, of politics and of re- 
ligion, the case is different. We are now in departments 
where truth assumes at once a fundamental relationship 
to the life of man. Hence we use the word doctrine. We 
speak of the doctrines of stoicism, the doctrines of social- 
ism, the political doctrines of Jefferson, the religious doc- 
trines of Buddha, of Confucius, of Christ. 

A doctrine, then, I repeat, is a truth in all cases vitally 



262 THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 



related to conduct. Take it away from conduct, and you 
take away a part of itself; a part of its very essence and 
substance., as a truth prehensible by the human mind. For 
example, how could we judge of a political theorem, apart 
from any actual or possible working of that theorem in the 
world's history? How could we judge of a system of mor- 
als, apart from any fruit that system has brought forth or 
is fitted to bring forth in human life? And how can a man 
know anything about a religious doctrine, if first he di- 
vorces it from all life and studies it as a naked intellectual 
abstraction? 

Now, my friends, above every other body of truths, 
Christianity, the religion of Jesus Christ, comes to us to- 
day as a system or syllabus of doctrines. Every truth of 
this gospel of the Son of God is set before us in a generic 
or indissoluble relationship to human duty and its human 
destiny. Indeed, cut this vital cord between them, and you 
drain that truth of its very life-blood. You tear the very 
heart of its meaning out of it. You rob it of all its signifi- 
cance, and leave behind a mere husk of a truth, the most 
empty and meaningless of dogmas. 

So with this Bible, as a whole. It was not sent into our 
world, let me remind you, as a compilation of metaphysical 
puzzles, designed primarily to tax the strength or subtlety 
of the human intellect, nor as a museum of antique won- 



THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 263 

ders, along whose corridors and lofty alcoves one may 
stroll and gratify an idle; curiosity ; but every truth of this 
revelation, with supernatural wisdom has been framed for 
a practical end; to do a certain gracious work for our fallen 
humanity. These transcendent truths, now collated and 
bound together in one harmonious volume, were meant to 
be, as I conceive, simply a glittering sheaf of heaven-tem- 
pered weapons, divinely furnished to the militant soul of 
man, wherewith it may combat successfully the principles 
of earth and hell, and win at last the crown of life. 

Plainly, before any religious doctrine can be judged of 
properly, it must be put to use. It must be applied to its 
end. It must be brought into contact with responsible 
life. It must germinate in human hearts and flower into 
actual human experience before you really have any data 
with which to answer the question of reason: "Is the doc- 
trine of God or is it of man?" 

And now right here, let me further remind you that the 
Bible is not alone in this peculiarity of its contents. There 
are other sciences besides theology whose truths can be 
studied only in connection with collateral truths. Borrow 
a very simple illustration of this from the vegetable world. 
A grain of wheat or the acorn of the oak has a fixed and 
unchanging relation to the soil which covers our earth. 
Suppose now the problem to be, to decide on the genuine- 



264 THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 



ness of an acorn or a grain of wheat, which I hold in my 
hand. I wish to know whether that wheat-kernel is living 
or dead. How am I to decide? Did I treat it as infidels 
have been accustomed to treat a doctrine of Christianity, 
I should send first for an optician to come with his micro- 
scope and peer into it, on this side and on that. And then 
I should send for a chemist to bring his most powerful 
acids, and put it to his sharpest tests. And then, very 
likely, I should quietly sever its delicate tissues with my 
knife, and divide it into parts, that I might find out where 
its hidden vitality lies. Should I find out in any such way? 

But if now, like a sensible man, I take this kernel of 
wheat and put it into the warm and congenial soil, where 
God meant it to unfold and manifest its hidden life, will it 
be long before I know whether it is living or dead? And 
could I, could any man, appreciate all the latent forces com- 
pressed within a single granule of wheat, or slumbering 
calmly within an acorn's rind, did he never look out upon 
an autumnal harvest or stand beneath the shelter of some 
knotted kingly oak of the forest? And how can one know 
anything about a religious doctrine, if first he ruthlessly 
tears it away from all soul contact and life experience, and 
examines it as an abstraction? My friends, it is not thus 
God's truth at all. It is but a faint prophecy, a mere seed- 
form of his great revelation. And not until that Christian 



THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 265 

doctrine has blended its supernatural energies with the cur- 
rents of an accountable human spirit, will it spring into its 
proportions of living beauty and demonstrate to all be- 
holders its heavenly origin as the very power and wisdom 
of God. The way, then, to know religion, I now submit to 
you, is to know it practically, experimentally. And just so 
far as you and I know this gospel of the grace of God 
practically, personally, experimentally, do we truly know it, 
and no< further. Hence our Saviour sent forth this challenge 
to the skeptics of his time and he proclaims the same to-day 
to every doubting, enquiring mind — "If any man will do 
his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of 
God, or whether I speak of myself." 

Reduced to its simplest terms, then, Christianity, the re- 
ligion of Jesus Christ, is a rule of human life, — a divinely 
ordained way, showing how to live in this world and how 
to prepare for another. Its whole spirit and genius is in- 
tensely practical. It was given, not to gratify speculative 
curiosity, but first and foremost to teach men the path 
from earth to heaven, 

The Bible, then, if you please, is a guide-book. But 
what is the office of a guide-book? You are traveling in 
a foreign land. Your long and tiresome route lies through 
a dangerous and, to you, wholly unfamiliar region. The 
people speak an unknown tongue. The habits and customs 



266 THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 



of the country are all strange. At every step you are 
launched into some new perplexity. But a guide-book is 
put into your hand. All travelers unqualifiedly endorse it. 
It gives abundant and minute information concerning the 
journey you contemplate. You find in it an accurate and 
entertaining description of the way. It points out all ob- 
jects of natural and historic interest. It gives you a care- 
ful list of the distances. It refers you to trustworthy cou- 
riers. It furnishes you the address of established and gen- 
tlemanly bankers. It describes the best modes of convey- 
ance for the country, and the fittest wearing apparel for the 
climate. It points out the most friendly and homelike rest- 
ing-places and hotels along the route. In short, it is a 
guide-book which for fulness of detail and accuracy of in- 
formation leaves nothing to be desired to ensure you a 
pleasant, safe and profitable journey over the line of travel 
you propose to pursue. 

But you are a skeptic, and taking up this guide-book, 
and glancing over it, you first complain that it is not a 
treatise on geology. Looking further, you next criticize it 
that it is not a systematic work on mental philosophy. Ex- 
amining it closer, you find fault that it does contain a com- 
plete and exhaustive history of the peoples through whom 
the journey lies, with all their tribes and clans from the- re- 
motest time. Then, glancing forward over the route de- 



THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 267 

scribed, you say, Here is a statement that seems unintel- 
ligible, and there is another statement which seems a dis- 
crepancy, and that assertion seems a mistake. Now, I ask, 
would that be fair and honest treatment of a guide-book? 
In all candor, are you not bound to judge the book by what 
it professes to be, and not by a gratuitous criterion of your 
own? And what would be a just method of verification? 
Would it not be to take the journey? And if, as you pro- 
ceed, each fact is corroborated, each statement becomes in- 
telligible, if you find it proving equal to every emergency, 
and if at the end of your journey you find not one mis- 
statement in the book from beginning to end, not the 
omission of a single fact needed for the best prosecution 
of that journey, but in all respects the book is perfectly 
adapted to the end proposed, — then, I ask, by all the laws 
of reason and honor, whatever else the book may lack, are 
you not bound to endorse it as a complete and perfect 
guide-book? 

Now, as I have already said, this Bible was not written 
to be a thesaurus of science. It was not put into our hands, 
as a race, primarily to teach us metaphysics. It never de- 
signed to disclose to* mankind all the intellectual wonders 
in earth, air and sky. It never meant to teach universal his- 
tory, or universal geography, or give a complete compen- 
dium of any human science. It was given to guide men to 
heaven. 



268 THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 



And now, my friends, if honestly you wish to test its 
truth, set out on the journey. And if, at the end of your 
Christian course, you shall say, I found one defect, there 
is one palpable oversight in this book, one plain misappli- 
cation of means to ends, one point where the Bible fails 
to furnish ample and opportune help to the struggling 
human soul in getting the victory over sin and in safely 
reaching the gates of immortal life; if you will thus put 
the Bible to the test, and you then find such a defect, I say 
to you, you then will have a right solemnly to lay your 
hand on this book and say, "It is not the Word of God; 
it is a fable, a myth, a falsehood and a lure to the souls of 
men." But until you do thus put it to the test, you must 
allow me to say, you have no qualification and no right to 
sit in judgment on the truth or the untruth of the sacred 
Book. 

But now, for a moment further, let me ask you to glance 
at another reason why any person without experimental 
acquaintance with these Scriptures is thereby unfitted to 
pass a safe intellectual judgment upon them — because the 
Bible has been written for our entire accountable nature. 
I need not remind you that the human soul is a creation 
of marvelous complexity, possessing the most diverse at- 
tributes and powers. Now if the contents of this Book ap- 
pealed only to my reason, then my reason would be en- 



THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 269 

tirely competent to pass judgment upon it. If a doctrine of 
Christ came to me just as a problem in mathematics comes 
to me, then my unassisted reason could deal with the solu- 
tion, because the truths of mathematics make no appeal to 
my moral nature. They have no voice for my affections, 
my conscience, my hopes, my fears. They address one 
single faculty of my intellectual being. But religion,, widely 
different, appeals to every faculty, and to every elemental 
power of my complex, spiritual manhood. I wish then to 
decide to-day, if possible, upon the claims of this alleged 
Word of God. Is it true or is it false? Plainly it is not 
enough that I now summon simply my reason to this great 
investigation. For my reason alone can interpret but a 
small part of this Book. No small part of these writings 
has directly to do with an alarmed conscience. No small 
part is specifically adapted to the wants of a human soul 
battling with trouble. Large portions of the volume find 
al\ their significance in stimulating the will. A part pro- 
duces the fruits of regenerated character. A part is ad- 
dressed to hope, a part to fear, a part to faith, a part to 
love. Clearly, if all my other faculties are dormant and 
reason only in exercise, I have but a very narrow premise 
on which to build up a conclusive judgment as to the 
Bible's adaptation to my whole spiritual nature. 
In some of the old medieval castles and museums, the 



270 THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 



modern traveler occasionally meets with a curiously con- 
structed chest, or casket, originally designed to be the safe 
depository of some costly, perhaps a crown, jewel. The 
peculiarity of the construction is this : you open the casket, 
and within it, closely fitted, you find a second casket; you 
open the second, and within it you discover a third; you 
open a third, and, it may be, a fourth and a fifth, but in the 
last casket your eyes rest upon the dazzling and costly bril- 
liant. Another peculiarity: each casket has its key. The 
key of the first will not open the second, the key of the sec- 
ond will not open the third; nor the the third the fourth, 
nor the fourth the fifth; each casket has its key and acci- 
dental misplacement or interchange fatally arrests all prog- 
ress. Now, not wholly unlike this, have often seemed to 
me the hidden treasures of this divine Book. Bring to it 
your mere reason and you penetrate only the rind of Scrip- 
ture. You strip off the mere husk of Bible truth, and there 
you must stop. But if now you can take up the key of a 
convicted conscience, that will strike deeper into the vol- 
ume; if, then, the key of the religious sensibilities, that will 
open into other mines of truth ; if then the key of fear, that 
unlocks another casket; if then of hope and; then of faith, 
still other precious revelations; but, lastly, if you can seize 
the shining key of love, that will open you into the very 
arcanum of the gospel. And now upon your adoring and 



THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 271 



awestruck vision will burst the central mystery of Chris- 
tian revelation, God's own Son on Calvary's cross, dying for 
a guilty world! And is any man bold enough to tell me 
that he can understand this blessed Bible of mine with no 
love in his soul? Tell me you can interpret day without the 
sun, or night without the glory of the stars, but tell me not 
you can penetrate to the divine significance of this gospel 
of my Lord, after you have struck him and his love from 
the firmament of the Scriptures! Can reason interpret 
love? Look upon that mother's deathless affection for her 
child. If you are a brute and no man, can you understand 
it? If you look at that picture, with only a cold, dry, fiend- 
ish glance of intellect, but without a man's soul in your 
body, do you know anything about it? Can the five senses 
change places? Can the ear see? Can the eye hear? Can 
you judge of poetry with your organ of mathematics, or 
decide on a musical composition with your mere reflect- 
ive powers? No more can the spiritual faculties inter- 
change. Love only can interpret love. Now the gospel 
of God's grace to man is a love gospel. From beginning to 
end, it is tidings of love. Take love out of my gospel, and 
you have taken from me all the gospel I have. Take light 
out of day, and what is left? 

And now, my fellow seeker after truth, think you to 
know Christ, the glory of his person, the power of his re- 



272 THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 

ligion and the mystery of his grace, a total stranger to the 
only key that ever admitted any finite being to the inner- 
most secret of God? No, not till in the depths of your 
soul you have felt your personal perishing need, and then 
out of your darkness and your despair have looked upon 
the uplifted and bleeding Christ as your Saviour — not till 
then have you any power to comprehend, with all saints, 
what is the breadth and length and depth and height of 
that love which passeth knowledge ! 

Thus far I have made no allusion to any supernatural 
guidance of the human soul, in the great quest after re- 
ligious truth. But is such, a guidance unphilosophical? Is 
prayer irrational? Are those words of the apostle meaning- 
less? 'Tf any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that 
giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not." Did Christ 
simply mock his followers when he said, "I will pray the 
Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, . . even 
the Spirit of truth ; whom the world cannot receive, because 
it seeth him not, neither knoweth him : for he dwelleth with 
you, and shall be in you." My dear friend, you are in per- 
plexity, you are assaulted with doubts, on this whole sub- 
ject of religion. Did it ever occur to you to take your Bible 
and in the solitude of a secret converse with the Father of 
your spirit ask help from One who never yet led any honest 
soul into darkness? 



THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 273 



But, after all, I hear it said, there is so much conflicting 
testimony, so many different opinions about religion, and 
all apparently sincere ; so many different views concerning 
the Bible, its origin, its inspiration, its infallibility, that 
really I know not what to believe. Very well, let us meet 
this new objection, and on its own ground. Turn we then 
to testimony, and we will receive the testimony of every 
qualified witness. We will receive the testimony of any and 
of all men who have tried the Bible, who have put the 
gospel of Jesus Christ to the test. Is not that fair? Now 
bring me one who shall say, "I have leaned my sin-bur- 
dened heart on Jesus as my Saviour and found him a de- 
ceiver." Bring me one who shall say, "I have taken this 
Bible as my life-counsellor, and it has proved a broken 
staff." Bring me one who shall say, "I have gone down 
into the valley of mortal anguish, and as the billows of af- 
fliction have rolled over me, with His promises in my hand 
I have looked to the heavens and they have been brass, and 
I have cried unto Him and his ear has been deaf." Out of 
all the ages point me to one martyr who has gone to the 
stake and Jesus has left him in the flames. Bring me one 
Christian hero who, as life's battles were ending and the 
film of death creeping over the gaze, even then has not 
been able to shout, with exultant Paul, "I know whom I 
have believed." My friend, in eighteen centuries bring 



274 THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 



me one sinner prostrate at the cross of Calvary with a 
heart so vile and a guilt so black that Christ's blood could 
not cleanse him, and Christ's power could not lift him up, 
and put a song of everlasting joy upon his lips ! Bring me 
one such witness to-day, and I yield you the argument. 
Nay, more, / give up my Bible; I trust it no longer. It has 
betrayed one human soul that has sincerely sought its 
light and its guidance. But until you do bring me this tes- 
timony, do not complain of me, do not call me unscientific 
and irrational, not abreast with modern thought, if I still 
cling to this old "Book of the Ages" as the sheet-anchor 
of my hope for this world and the next. 

And now Christ says, "If any man will do his will, he 
shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether 
I speak of myself." Could anything be simpler? Could 
anything be fairer? You honestly wish to know, my 
friend, if religion is a reality or a dream of over-excited 
brains. If the gospel of God's grace proffered to sinful men 
is true, it is able to make good promises of help and cleans- 
ing to the needy and perishing. Try it, try it, and you will 
know. And it is simply impossible for you truly to know, 
in any other way. But do not make a common mistake. 
Do not attempt to learn the lesson of Christ, beginning at 
the wrong end. Do not seek to enter the path to heaven 
by a side entrance. Christ points out the gateway, and he 



THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 275 



declares that whoever enters elsewhere is "a thief and a 
robber." Begin with the simplest teachings first. You enter 
a schoolroom and before you sits a pupil with a discour- 
aged and downcast face, poring over the last leaves of 
some book. Approaching his side, you find perhaps that 
here is a lad trying to master, it may be, arithmetic back- 
wards. Instead of commencing at the beginning and with 
the simplest principles and mastering first addition and 
then subtraction and then multiplication and then divis- 
ion, he has begun at the very back end of the book, and 
with the hardest problems it contains. Is it any wonder 
that the lad is discouraged? But how many 1:o-day are 
studying this great text-book, the Bible, filled with the lore 
of eternity, in just this way. They insist on solving all its 
hardest doctrines first. They insist that every mystery 
shall be explained to them, from Genesis to Revelation, be- 
fore they will take the first step in the* path of Christian 
duty. Now, I ask, is that reasonable? You say there are 
many things in the Bible you cannot understand. Very 
likely; but is there nothing you can understand? Then in 
heaven's name begin with that. If you cannot understand 
"election," try repentance. If you cannot understand the 
Epistle to the Romans, try the Sermon on the Mount. If 
you cannot comprehend the Trinity, see if you can compre- 
hend Paul's words to the Philippian jailor: "Believe on the 



276 THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 



Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." If the Apoc- 
alypse is still a sealed book, see if to-day the cry of the 
penitent, prostrate publican is intelligible to your lost and 
guilty soul: "God be merciful to me a sinner !" And where 
you can understand, as you value your everlasting inter- 
ests, there begin to learn and there begin to practice. And, 
my dear friend, you will go forward, light will break upon 
your path, scales will fall from your eyes, and more and 
more, as you proceed, will you behold wondrous things 
out of this Book. And at length you will make the dis- 
covery that all the truths of this Bible converge and have 
their radiant explanation in the marvelous life and death 
of God's redeeming Son. 

But do not expect to understand all the mysteries. The 
Bible was not given for this, but to guide you to heaven. 
And if saved, some of these glorious and now fathomless 
mysteries will be your rapturous study and mine through- 
out eternity. But come now to Christ. Learn of him who 
is "meek and lowly in heart." Come with the spirit of a 
little child and not of a proud philosopher. Perhaps for 
years you have stood at the threshold of this Book; and 
you have stood there speculating, doubting, objecting, cav- 
iling. And, my friend, the summons of the Death Angel 
will find you just where you are to-day, unless you first 
come to Christ. 



THE SOLVING OF DOUBTS 277 



Oh, then, begin at the cross! Bow in blessed heart-sur- 
render at His pierced feet, who died for you, and taste in 
the depths of your own forgiven soul the joys unspeakable 
of redeeming love. Then no more darkness, no more 
doubts, no more clouds, all the way up to the shining gate. 
And, at last, with thousands on thousands before you of 
victorious ones, now in glory, you too shall bear joyful 
testimony to the truth of these words of Christ, "If any 
man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether 
it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." 



the bible: its place and power in 
church and state 

"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." — John 
17: 17. 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER IN 
CHURCH AND STATE 



All truth is fitted to accomplish some beneficent end. 
This is one of its tests ; and by this we may distinguish it 
from falsehood. Truth is always self-agreeing and in har- 
mony with the nature of things, while falsehood is self- 
discordant and in opposition to all right results. With 
reference to this well-known quality of truth we often 
say of a piece of perfect mechanism that one part is true 
to another, because all the parts work unclashingly together 
toward a common and useful end. Still oftener, we say of 
a painting or some work of art, that it is true to nature, 
meaning that its artistic laws and principles conform to 
the laws and principles of nature. But in a higher sense 
than we can speak of any material adaptations, may we 
say, there is an adaptation between all truth and the laws 
and nature of the human mind. The mind was made 
for truth and truth for the mind. It is the natural nutri- 
ment of mind, as food of the body. It is the instrumen- 
tality ordained of heaven, by which the human soul is to 
grow and ascend in the scale of moral intelligence. 

All truth, in a degree, has this effect. There is truth in 



282 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 



the heavens above us which proclaim creating power. 
There is truth in the rainbow, the changing seasons, the 
light, the flower, the crystal, for they all speak of benefi- 
cence and beauty. There is truth in a mathematical 
problem. There is truth — more or less pure — in nearly 
every accredited system of science or philosophy now ex- 
tant in our world. And all these truths have their legiti- 
mate effect on mind and character. But higher, and more 
than in them all, there is truth in the Word of God. 

So far indeed do these Scriptures of divine revelation 
transcend all other systems or compends of truth, that our 
Saviour, when praying his Father to sanctify his followers 
through the truth, speaks of it as if it were the only truth : 
"Thy word is truth," as if in comparison with all else it 
might be called truth itself. Is this exaggeration? Did 
Christ overestimate the Scriptures? In other words, does 
the Bible or does it not, stand thus preeminent to-day, 
above all other embodiments or digests of truth, in adap- 
tation to the human mind and soul? An attempt briefly 
to answer this question will outline and limit the present 
discourse. 

In raising so important an inquiry, evidently it will 
greatly abridge our work if at the outset we can lay down 
one or two simple tests, which may be fairly applied to any 
body of truth in determining its relative importance. And 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 283 

I think all will agree that the first requisite of any system 
of truth laying claim to high rank, would be that its central 
ideas and doctrines should be intrinsically noble and ele- 
vating. Without some degree of intellectual dignity, 
plainly no truth-system could assume high rank. 

Again, another requisite of such a system would be, that 
its ideas should be of such a kind, and so presented, as to 
find a wide currency among men. 

And a third requisite would be, that these ideas, when 
thus presented, should possess a power to influence man- 
kind. 

Here now are three tests : grandeur of idea, zvide popular 
adaptation, and power to influence men. 

And that we may fully grasp these tests at the start, let 
me now instance some schemes of thought where one or 
more of them would not apply, or very imperfectly. There 
are systems of philosophy, both ancient and modern, con- 
taining ideas and truths of remarkable profundity, acumen, 
erudition and intellectual sublimity, but which ideas and 
truths have no adaptation whatever to common minds. 

To the mass of the people they are as an unknown 
tongue. Such, for example, was the old Platonic philoso- 
phy, the esoteric doctrines of ancient Egypt; and in the 
same category might be classed much of our modern trans- 
cendental and mystical literature. In some respects these 



284 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 



writings are remarkable for elevation of idea ; yet were 
they never so> perfect in this respect, they have no adapta- 
tion to popular currency. 

Take now an instance where perhaps our first and sec- 
ond tests would apply, but not the third. I might here 
adduce many of the natural sciences. Select, if you please, 
the grandest of them all, astronomy — a science of the 
sublimest facts and the most inspiring intellectual prin- 
ciples, and which by a skilful exhibition of its main truths 
has now been wonderfully popularized, brought within 
the comprehension of nearly every schoolboy. Yet 
astronomy, sublime as it is as a science and system of 
truth, has never yet possessed sufficient moral power to 
reform a single human life. It would almost totally fail 
under our third test. 

But without stopping to illustrate further, let us now 
bring the Bible at once face to face with this standard we 
have adopted : 

I. The intellectual dignity of its contents. 

And here our way is clear, for even skeptics, almost uni- 
versally, have admitted its remarkable character in this 
particular, and while rejecting its inspired claims, have 
acknowledged its singular sublimity of thought and 
doctrine. Let us glance, then, hastily, at two or three 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 285 

of the central ideas of the Bible as a body of systematic 
truth. 

We will begin with that truth which must ever stand as 
the most distinctive feature in any religious system, the 
conception of the Supreme Being. The Bible is not alone 
in the fact that it recognizes a God. All pagan nations 
in some form or other have accepted this great belief, for 
the necessity of a God lies too' deep in universal human 
consciousness, I must believe, to be wholly shut out from 
the processes of any intellect. Hence we say the Bible is 
not original in the fact that a Deity exists, but simply in 
the attributes and character with which it endows him. 

Compare for one moment the Jehovah of the Bible with 
the gods of any heathen nation. Take, if you please, Greece 
and Rome at the height of their classic glory, the brightest 
examples of pagan intelligence. Take the loftiest creation 
of their imaginative philosophy, Jupiter, chief of the gods 
and central figure in the ancient mythology. But how in- 
finitely does such a conception, with the loftiest adornments 
of poetry, fall beneath the sublime personality of the 
Christian's God, enthroned in the simple majesty of these 
Scriptures ! The gods of heathendom at their best were 
but frail human nature exaggerated. Jove himself was but 
a colossal man. 

And turning from the popular theology to the more 



286 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 



select philosophies of the past, we find but little advance. 
Plato himself, whose name is now well-nigh synonymous 
with lofty speculation, never reached the idea of one self- 
exist ent God. The Divine Being with him was but the em- 
bodiment of the forces of the world; a substance rather 
than a person, and over all, gods and men, still presided 
dark fate unintelligent and inexorable. And even modern 
pantheism, less than a generation ago the boasted capstone 
of modern infidel thought, and whose bold aim it was to 
crush the Bible itself beneath the wheels of its systema- 
tizing enginery, even German pantheism, at its highest 
flight of philosophic generalization, on this truth of a per- 
sonal God, halted just where heathen Plato halted three 
thousand years ago ; while modern positivism, its reac- 
tionary successor and supplanter to-day, falls immeasura- 
bly lower. 

No fact then is more fully settled by universal human 
history, than that the world by its wisdom knows not 
God. 

The idea of an omnipresent and personal Jehovah, the 
alone, infinite, eternal and self-existent Sovereign of all 
worlds, has never yet been attained by any unaided human 
intellect. There is but one seeming exception to this 
statement, and that is the Mohammedan Koran. Yet in 
this instance the evidence is beyond question, that the 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 287 

truth of one God, contained in the Koran, was borrowed 
directly from the Jewish Scriptures. 

While then polytheism and pantheism have been the 
product of mere philosophy, the Bible stands undeniably 
alone in the revelation of one supreme, personal and infinite 
God, the executive and omnipresent Potentate of the universe. 
And if this truth is original with the Bible, where in human 
composition will you find another to equal it ? 

But turn now to a second central Scripture truth. I 
refer you to the fact or conception of a perfect earthly life 
as unfolded in the recorded history of Jesus of Nazareth. 
Where else in literature will you point me to the portrait- 
ure of a perfect man? The world has had its heroes, and 
genius has striven to transcend reality and construct an 
ideal unity of manhood. The pencil of Apelles and the 
chisel of Phidias wrought through laborious years to 
awaken from the canvas and strike from the marble a per- 
fect human form. 

Shakespeare, the unparalleled in dramatic creation, has 
given the world characters that will never die from English 
literature. But in art or history, in the conceptions of 
genius or the realizations of actual conduct, where will you 
find a character and a life like that so artlessly sketched on 
the pages of this gospel? The representations of human 
literature at the best are but the virtues of an apostate and 



288 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 



depraved manhood; but here we have the authenticated 
and delineated instance of one earthly life which was sin- 
less and perfect. Well then might Theodore Parker con- 
fess — himself prince of modern rationalists — "Only a 
Jesus could have forged a Jesus." 

Glance at one more central Bible truth and we leave this 
point, the immortality of the human soul. It may be claimed 
that outside the Bible men have held the soul's immortality. 
We admit that so strong is man's instinct for life, and his 
consciousness of a capacity for endless growth, that even 
pagan minds have cherished the conjecture that the soul 
in some form might endure forever. But how dim and 
unsatisfying the boldest conceptions of heathen wisdom, 
compared with the full and positive annunciation of this 
inspired Book ! It may be safely affirmed that the Bible 
alone has brought "to light" life and immortality beyond 
the grave. The pen of Cicero indeed caught an unwonted 
eloquence as it discoursed on this lofty theme, yet how 
humiliating the fact that even that great intellect was 
obliged to confess that what he wrote was not as reliable 
as the Pythian Oracle. We count it an instance of sublime 
heathen calmness that Socrates could say to his judges, 
"I go to suffer death and you to enjoy life; the gods only 
know which is best." How different this from that posi- 
tive and exultant acclaim of the great apostle as he too 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 289 

through martyrdom was going to his reward: "I have 
fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept 
the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall 
give me at that day." 

Here now are three truths, the being of a God, the 
historic record of a perfect earthly life, and the immortality 
of the human soul. And we challenge any book, or all 
books together, ever written, in any and all ages, to pro- 
duce three truths and prove them original, of equal intel- 
lectual grandeur and sublimity. 

II. But I come now to our second test, the wide adaptation 
of this Book to the popular mind. Plainly, the most exalted 
system or syllabus of truths ever penned would be com- 
paratively powerless if incapable of being understood. 
Sadly said the great German philosopher Hegel, near the 
close of his life, "Only one man in Germany understands 
me, and he misunderstands me." "It is impossible," said a 
Grecian sage, "to make God known' to everybody." But 
just this very thing is what the Bible undertakes to do. 
And I unhesitatingly say that never was a book so wonder- 
fully constructed to accomplish its purpose in this particu- 
lar. This will be sufficiently evident, I think, if I bring 
to your notice two of its peculiarities ; first, the democracy 
of its spirit, and second, the popularity of its style. 



290 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 

In the first place, never was a book so uncompromisingly 
democratic as this Book, or so profoundly sympathetic 
from cover to cover with universal humanity. 

Indeed, this is the only book which has even dared, in 
all ages and in all countries, practically and unflinchingly 
to assume the universal brotherhood of man, and sanction 
the teaching by the highest moral precept ever uttered 
in human ears : "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
And this great principle of universal "good will to men," 
I now say, first of all, guarantees the ultimate and univer- 
sal domination of this Book round our globe. 

But so familiar are we with this branch of the argument, 
in this democratic age and country, that I need not here 
prolong it. 

I pass then to the second popular element of the Bible — 
its unrivalled literary character. It is often objected to the 
Bible by those who would weaken its authority, that its ca- 
nonical contents embrace so wide a variety in subject-mat- 
ter and style. In other words, it is put forward as a for- 
midable argument against the plenary inspiration of the 
Scriptures, that they have been composed through the 
agency of so many human writers, and during so long a 
period of time. But, on the other hand, I now press this 
very fact as one of the highest proofs we could possess 
that this Book is of superhuman authorship. 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 291 



Why is it, I ask, that the follower of Mohammed relies 
so much upon his sword and so little upon the Koran for 
the popular spread of his faith? Other reasons indeed he 
has, but had he no other, this would be sufficient, that the 
Koran has no literary fitness to be universally read. Its 
one unvarying style of stilted stateliness and sing-song mo- 
notony soon becomes intolerable even to its devoutest ad- 
mirer. Is it not then a mark of divine wisdom that the 
Bible is the joint product of not less than forty different 
human authors, each leaving his individual impress upon 
it? And while the whole is so wonderfully compact as to 
form but a single volume of medium size, it contains every 
possible variety of literary style and intellectual composi- 
tion. History, poetry, morals, philosophy, dialogue, prov- 
erb, narrative, apothegm, are all here ; and not only 
every species of discourse, but every key of emotional 
style, the sublime, the tender, the profound, the contem- 
plative, the plainest practicality, and the rhythm of highest 
revelation. Do you love the grand in thought and image- 
ry? Turn to the lofty verse of Isaiah, or to the cloud- 
shadowed drama of Job. Let Jehovah himself appear, and 
speak to murmuring man from the whirlwind. Or is your 
mood rather for the pensive? Jeremiah sweeps his dirgeful 
harp as he weeps in musical sadness for the slain of the 
daughters of his people. Do you love simple and affecting 



292 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 

narrative? Read the beautiful story of Ruth, the parable 
of the prodigal son, or join the grief of David as he weeps 
over the untimely death of Absalom. Do you love concise 
and graphic history? The book of Genesis is a model. Do 
you delight in terse and sparkling apothegm? Open to the 
royal pages of Solomon. Do you love argument and pro- 
found dissertation? Grapple with the masterly dialectics of 
Paul. Or is your taste yet severer? Sit at the feet of 
Moses and peruse that wonderful body of jurisprudence 
which had its birth amid the flames of Sinai. Is poetry 
your delight? Herein is every variety; whether with the 
lyric Psalmist you would wander by Judaea's streams and 
sunny pastures, or on the wing of grander epic, wander 
down the stream of apocalyptic vision, till across abysmal 
centuries and from behind clouds vocal with retributive 
thunders and fringed with symbolic fires, shall arise at 
length on the Orient of the distant future the jasper battle- 
ments and the pinnacled glories of the New Jerusalem. And 
it is this marvelous literary diversity, I now say, under a di- 
vine unity of inspiration, that forms the wonder of the 
Bible : that while in the great orchestra of revelation is 
every type of performer, there is still a centrality of utter- 
ance, for under the finger of the directing Spirit the notes 
of all blend in one master-chord of redemptive truth; and 
while it is Paul, Isaiah, John, Matthew, Moses, we read, it 
is still the Word of God. 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 293 

III. But I hasten to the application of our third and 
last test: Is the Bible a book of power? Our argument has 
already embraced elements of power; it remains, therefore, 
but to glance in a few brief points at some of their outward 
and historic manifestations. As was said at the beginning, 
it is possible for a system of truth to be both grand in its 
intellectual conception, and wide in its popular adaptation, 
and yet possess but a feeble moral power. 

What, then, has experiment shown of the Bible in this 
respect? Take first its power of mere existence or self -per- 
petuation. That is certainly no mean property of truth, or 
of a system of thought, which enables it to endure age after 
age with unimpaired supremacy and unity. No book can 
parallel the Bible in this respect. Without external aid, by 
an intrinsic moral force, it has met and outlived an array 
of opposition before which any other book, ages since, 
would have become extinct. 

I will not now speculate on the causes, whether philo- 
sophical or miraculous, which preserved intact and uncor- 
rupt the Jewish Scriptures through so many ages of na- 
tional calamity and vicissitude. The fact is indeed a phe- 
nomenon in literature. But it is when we come to the New 
Testament, with its doctrines and body of historic truth, 
that we find the most marked exemplification of moral 
power. Protected by no human authority, assisted neither 



294 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 

by art nor eloquence, its Author put to death as a malefac- 
tor, yet the teachings of twelve men, poor, friendless, illit- 
erate, spread with a rapidity and power never before wit- 
nessed in the annals of time. In a single year after the 
death of Christ, his disciples numbered ten thousand. In 
two years, the crucified faith overran Judaea. In less than 
a century, it pervaded northern Africa, the whole of Asia 
Minor, and no small part of Europe. In three centuries 
Christianity sat in the throne of the Caesars, and Rome, 
proud mistress of the world, bowed to the standard of the 
cross. It has survived the ecclesiastical apostasy of the 
middle ages. Once and again it has warred knife to knife 
with a relentless atheism sworn to its extermination. And 
what is its position to-day on the face of the globe? "In 
the nineteenth century," said Voltaire, "the Bible will be 
an obsolete book." The very room, we are told, in which 
that sentence was penned, in the city of Geneva, but re- 
cently was packed to its ceiling with Bibles, to be dis- 
tributed throughout Switzerland. 

But not only has this Book perpetuated itself, it has 
exerted a positive political influence. "There are no poli- 
tics," says Milton, "like those in the Bible," for there is 
no book which strikes so directly at the foundation of all 
true government, the self-government of the individual. 
Indeed, it is from this Book that the world has received its 
first just notions of human liberty. 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 295 

An old Latin copy of the Scriptures, deposited in the 
library at Erfurt, some three hundred years ago fell in the 
way of a young Augustinian monk. From a diligent study 
of that old volume, he arrived at a conviction of the fol- 
lowing truths : "the right of private judgment, and the 
soul's individual responsibility to God." At the torch of 
that discovery was kindled the genius of Martin Luther 
and the reformation of the sixteenth century. And to 
Luther and his successors in ecclesiastical reform is the 
world indebted for its first great suggestion in solving the 
problem of civil liberty. An eminent political writer has 
declared John Calvin to be the founder of the American 
republic. The remark was made with no reference to his 
peculiar theology, but simply because in that independent 
and Biblical church at Geneva, composed chiefly of Puri- 
tan refugees, were first developed in bold statement, by a 
master mind, the rights of opinion and freedom of con- 
science. 

And it was to these men, as Hume confessed, bitterly as 
he hated their religiousness of life, that England was 
indebted for all the liberty in her constitution. And the 
more eloquent Macaulay has written : "Then were first 
proclaimed those mighty principles which have since 
worked their way into the depths of the American forest, 
have roused Greece from the slavery of two thousand 



296 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 

years, and from one end of Europe to the other have 
kindled an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the op- 
pressed." 

And, my friends, believe it, this free Protestant Bible, 
to-day, more than all other forces beneath the sun, is 
steadily preparing the way for the downfall ultimately of 
the last fabric of political despotism that now curses this 
earth. A book that has thus shaped the destinies of nations 
must have no ordinary intellectual character. Take a single 
illustration on this point. An obscure fisherman on the 
lakes of Palestine wrote a short treatise which now covers 
less than five octavo pages. One of the most gifted scholars 
England ever produced spent years of intense and learned 
labor in developing and enforcing the ideas of that brief 
document. And we are told that these same epistles of 
Peter furnished even the splendid genius of Coleridge 
with many of those aphorisms which form the basis of his 
celebrated "Aids to Reflection." 

Philosophy has bowed reverently before the Bible. 
Sheridan confessed that he owed to it nearly all his elo- 
quence, and it is one of the four volumes which Byron 
said he never suffered to be absent from his table. And 
yet, not with scholars or philosophers has this book 
wrought its proudest intellectual results. It has awakened 
the common mind. It is the book of the masses and the 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 297 



charter of their hopes. Religion and education landed 
hand in hand on Plymouth Rock. The college for the 
people and the sanctuaries of God went up together on 
New England's hills. 

The Bible and the system of common schools were then 
united in a vital union, and the vandal hand to-day aiming 
a blow at the one, believe it, would fain drive a dagger 
to the heart of the other. The spirit which would now 
make God's Word contraband in our schools is a lying 
spirit, for behind the thinnest disguise of patriotism burns 
a smouldering fire of undying ecclesiastical hate to the 
whole genius of our American republicanism ; and the 
blow leveled ostensibly at this Book, is leveled not at this, 
but at Protestant liberty itself, which now saturates through 
and through all our education, all our literature, all our 
institutions. A friend of Rufus Choate, examining the pri- 
vate library of that great lawyer, expressed surprise that 
while he found upon his shelves not a single copy of the 
Constitution, he found there not less than seven different 
editions of the Greek Testament. "Ah," said Mr. Choate, 
"you forget that the Constitution of my country is in every 
one of them." And it is the Constitution of this "land of 
the free," guaranteeing equal rights of person and con- 
science to all, and whose spirit lies embedded and glowing 
on every page of this divine Book, that is now exciting all 



298 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 

the implacable ire of Rome's priestly servants over this 
broad continent. 

And if we go on, brethren, as for twenty-five years, in 
craven concession to this insatiate foreign power on our 
home soil, when our next American centennial returns, 
our children and our children's children will gather only 
to write an epitaph on the gravestone of American liberty. 
God in his mercy avert the danger, and awaken us betimes 
to the wiles of that old foe of constitutional liberty, ready 
to spring at our vitals the very moment she has the power ! 

This Book dangerous, do they tell us? Dangerous to 
what? Only to ignorance and injustice; only to the secret 
cabals of tyranny, spiritual and secular. 

This Book sectarian? Then is God's sunshine sectarian; 
then is the Infinite Spirit that dictated it; then is the 
Christ incarnate, revealed on its almost every page, the only 
hope and Saviour of our race, and who said to his fol- 
lowers : "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel 
to every creature ;" then is the God; and Father universal, 
of whom the whole family in earth and heaven is named, 
and who has declared that his word shall stand for ever — 
a sectarian God ! 

But we are gravely informed in these latter days, that this 
Book, unrestricted in its dissemination and reading, puts a 
shackle on certain freeborn human consciences ; more than 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 299 



this, puts in deadly peril certain inalienable spiritual rights, 
and everlasting interests of the God-begotten and God- 
accountable human soul. Did not such a charge fall to 
pieces under the simple weight of its own absurdity, it 
would be a pure blasphemy hurled into the face of Him 
who is the author both of the human soul, and of this 
infallible Word of infinite wisdom and grace published to 
his human children. This Book a conspirator against 
human rights ! a foe to soul liberty ! whose single mission 
down all the ages, it can now be historically demonstrated, 
when itself free and unmanacled, has been only to enfran- 
chise consciences, unbar prison doors, and let oppressed 
souls everywhere go free ! And shall we in this nineteenth 
Christian century, go back on all history, and become an 
unprotesting party to the monstrous lie that this divine 
Book, untrammeled by church or priest, and left to ray out 
simply its own heaven-born beauty and power, ever has, 
or ever can be an ally and tool of religious intolerance 
and sectarian oppression? Falsest of falsehoods ever in- 
vented by the father of falsehood ! 

But there are different versions, it is said, and there is 
a choice. Let there be a choice if it comes to that. But in 
God's name, let us not scuttle his own ark, launched upon 
this sin-deluged world, and atheistically and suicidally send 
it to the bottom of the sea, freighted with the very salva- 



300 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 



tion of humanity, because we chance to have a choice in 
the key with which to unlock its door and stand within 
its glorious apartments of refuge and hope ! 

But I must not linger, for I am reminded that there is yet 
a power of this Book in the presence of which all that we 
have said sinks into eclipse. We have admired the temple; 
its matchless exterior; we have not yet penetrated to its 
Holy of holies, and unveiled the very glory of the Shekinah. 
And what finite words can measure the religious power of 
this sacred volume? What mortal hand can unveil the 
energies of one human soul, or paint the conquest of one 
life redeemed forever unto God? And for eighteen cen- 
turies Christianity has been repeating its miracles of grace. 
It has wiped the tear from the cheek of penitence, 
poured light and hope into the bosom of despair, and 
robbed of its grim hideousness earth's last terror; and 
now in this missionary age it is belting the globe with 
paths of light. The isles of the sea have learned the song 
of deliverance. Across the dark plains of Africa the chorus 
is rolling. Even from within the walls of the celestial em- 
pire itself, which for ages seemed the last entrenchment 
of error, praise is beginning to ascend unto the name of 
Jesus. 

And when the whole world is opening to this Book, 
shall we, in Bible-founded and God-saved America, put 



THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 301 

it in chains, and in the face of all heathendom, by solemn 
state enactment, brand into its shining cover the words 
"sectarian" and "contraband"? 

But let us come to the question. Is the Bible a book 
of power? Is the Bible still a book of power? or is it, 
as some would have us believe, already antiquating, fast 
losing its hold on the advancing intelligence of mankind, 
and ere long to be entirely superseded and shelved before 
a higher wisdom? Was Christ, or was he not really phil- 
osophical in the prayer and in the argument, "Sanctify 
them through thy truth: thy word is truth"? My friend, 
I beseech you, do not evade the issue; for in my judg- 
ment this is the key position, of the whole battle now wag- 
ing between modern faith and unfaith : Can you match the 
Bible under either of the three tests to which we have 
now applied it, with any other book or system of truth be- 
neath the sun? 

And if this Book is indeed God's Book, if more perfectly 
than any other it is framed to the mind and heart and 
soul of man, here and hereafter, then I say the Christian 
believer and the Christian patriot needs to return to a 
more intelligent and hearty reverence for it. If it is the 
divinely appointed instrumentality for the world's regen- 
eration, then it is the Bible above all other instrumentali- 



302 THE BIBLE: ITS PLACE AND POWER 



ties ; it is the Bible first and highest in our pulpits ; it is 
the Bible first and foremost in our Sabbath services ; it 
is the Bible above philosophy, above and before moral 
reforms, above and against priestly dictation; yes, my 
brethren, it is this blessed volume of God, broadcast, free, 
unfettered and unproscribed as the very air and light which 
flood the sky, in which are centered the hopes of humanity, 
the hopes of the true Church of God, the hopes of this 
American republic. It is more to us than the palladium of 
Greece. It is more to us than the mystic ensign of im- 
perial Constantine. It is more to us than the enchanted 
drum of the Bohemian Ziska, which, wherever it went, 
led to victory, for its ringing music marshaled again the 
shades of departed heroes, who assembled, an invisible 
host, to fight again the battles of their country. But where 
goes this Book goes a mightier than mortal ally, even 
the Spirit and power of the living God. 

It is his truth, and he will honor it. It shall not return 
unto him void. The missiles of error and infernal hate 
shall fall harmlessly at its feet. Nor shall it accomplish 
its divine mission until earth's redeemed thousands are 
gathered on the mount of praise above. 



HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 

"Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief." — Mark 9 : 24. 



HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 



While our Saviour was apart with his three favored dis- 
ciples in the mount of Transfiguration, an afflicted father, 
we learn from the gospel narrative, brought his child, pos- 
sessed of an evil spirit, to the disciples who remained at the 
foot of the mountain, and besought them to cast out the 
evil spirit. This, however, they were not able to do; and 
on our Saviour's return from the mountain, the distressed 
father directed his appeal to him. "If thou canst do any 
thing/' is his prayer to Christ, "have compassion on us, 
and help us." Then Christ answered, "If thou canst be- 
lieve, all things are possible to him that believeth. And 
straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with 
tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." 

Evidently a fierce struggle was going forward in that 
father's breast between faith and doubt. He had just seen 
the disciples baffled in their attempts to work the miracle. 
Probably by the hearing of the ear, if not by actual sight, 
he was already in possession of some evidence of the Sav- 
iour's divine character; yet that evidence, he painfully felt, 
was incomplete. His faith wavered. But his case was most 
urgent. A father's heart was bound up with the cure he 



3 o6 HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 



sought. From Christ's own lips he now learns that the ex- 
ercise of faith within his own breast is the only hope for 
his wretched child; and the terrible apprehension flashes 
upon him, that possibly he may fail of success at just this 
vital point, namely, want of sufficient confidence put forth 
by himself in Christ's power to effect the cure. 

With an anguished heart, then, and his eyes brimming 
with tears, he takes refuge in prayer, and casts himself 
upon the condescending grace and mercy of Christ: "Lord, 
I believe; help thou mine unbelief," as if he had said, "I 
do have a glimmer of confidence; I do possess a spark of 
faith; kindle thou that spark into a flame. By thy sover- 
eign power perfect what is lacking in my soul; 'help thou 
mine unbelief.' Give me the victory over it, and let no 
faithlessness of mine, I beseech thee, stand between me and 
the glorious boon I crave." And the gracious Saviour 
heard that prayer, and the blessing was not withholden. 

No truth, my friends, is written more conspicuously, on 
nearly every page of the gospel, than that only by the ex- 
ercise of belief or trust in Christ as the only Saviour of 
men, can any needy human soul receive forgiveness and 
the redemptive favor of heaven. "He that believeth . . . 
shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned," 
was Christ's own clear enunciation of this great truth. And 
again : "God so loved the world, that he gave his only be- 



HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 307 

gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." "Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," was an apostle's 
only direction to a trembling sinner of old. 

In a word, then, belief now stands forth ordained of 
heaven as the only medium of reunion between a holy God 
and apostate man — the only channel through which spirit- 
ual blessings can now flow down into any needy human 
heart. 

An act or exercise of the human soul, exalted to such 
prominence as belief is everywhere exalted in the Scrip- 
tures, evidently deserves our most careful analysis and con- 
sideration. What, then, are we to understand as gospel 
faith? What is saving belief or confidence in Christ? In 
other words, what degree or measure of trust must a 
needy and yearning human heart put into exercise towards 
the Redeemer of sinners, before it may feel authorized 
humbly and tremblingly to say, "Lord, I believe," and 
thus plead the promise of divine forgiveness and help? 

It is plain that this question touches a vital center in all 
gospel teaching, and is of the utmost experimental impor- 
tance to every heaven-seeking soul. 

As a preparatory step towards reaching the answer we 
seek, let me now observe that nothing will be more ob- 
vious to every reflecting mind than that genuine faith 



308 HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 

may exhibit the widest phases of difference in respect to 
strength and fervor, not only in different souls, but also in 
the same soul at different stages of its spiritual history. 
True belief may range all the way from the faintest and 
feeblest glimmer of trust that ever entered a despairing 
mind, up to the loftiest and most unquestioning assurance 
that ever opened heaven's glories to a dying Christian. 

Thus one of the most familiar teachings of the Bible is, 
that faith or grace in the heart is a growth. "The path of 
the just," we are told, "is as the shining light, that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day." Faith may begin in 
the soul like the earliest glint of morning on the eastern 
sky; it may end like the cloudless meridian sun, bathing the 
round world in light. 

To expect the same completeness of belief, or distinct- 
ness of religious experience, in a new-born heart that we 
expect in a mature Christian, would be as unphilosophical 
as to look for the same intelligence or muscular vigor in an 
infant that we look for in a man. Religion in the soul is a 
thing of degrees, and faith, wherever truly existing, exists 
under a law of development. When the God of heaven 
gives the command to a sin-laden and Satan-enslaved hu- 
man heart, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou 
shalt be saved," he certainly cannot employ the word "be- 
lieve" with the most absolute and unlimited signification 



HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 309 

possible to attach to that word, for such a command would 
be simple mockery given to such a soul. Neither can he 
intend to say "believe" as an angel in heaven might believe, 
or as a redeemed spirit a thousand years in glory might be- 
lieve, or even as an unfallen human spirit might believe. 
But believe — how? As a poor, weak, ignorant, tempted and 
fallen human heart may believe. Come to Jesus with all 
the confidence you can summon; come to him, and come 
boldly, with all the faith you have to give, be it much or 
be it little; and then before his cross send up the cry, 
"Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief." 

Let us proceed to turn our attention for a moment to 
two things which of necessity must ever modify the exer- 
cise of faith or belief in a finite and sinful human heart. 

First, let us look at faith or belief as related to knowl- 
edge or mere intellectual apprehension of divine things. 
None will deny, I think, that the more intellectual knowl- 
edge and insight one has gained respecting any object 
or person claiming his faith, other things being equal, 
the broader and more solid a foundation he will have laid 
for the exercise of unwavering belief in that person or ob- 
ject. For example, turning again to the case of this af- 
flicted father who came to Christ for the healing of his son, 
it is clear that the more ocular demonstration that father 
already had of Christ's power as a healer, and the more 



3io HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 



knowledge already in his possession of the Saviour's di- 
vine character, the more reasonably he might be expected 
and required to exercise at that time unquestioning confi- 
dence in his miraculous ability. 

Now, my friends, we need constantly to remember that 
the gospel of Jesus Christ comes into this lost world, bring- 
ing its ''glad tidings of great joy," not simply or primarily 
to the learned, the educated, the intellectual giants of our 
race, but just as much to the poor, the illiterate, the feeble- 
minded; just as much to little children as to the profound- 
est theologians. When a wretched and ignorant human 
soul, then, feels its need of Christ, and gropes its trembling 
way towards his cross, and there tries to exercise saving 
belief in his glorious power, it would be merely absurd for 
us to expect that that soul should instantaneously arrive at 
a full intellectual comprehension of the whole scheme of 
Christian theology; that at once it should be able to solve 
all the theoretical mysteries of the Christian religion. 
When, in process of time, it stands up in the house of God 
publicly to confess its crucified Saviour before men, we are 
not to expect or require that that babe in Christ shall un- 
derstand speculatively all about the Trinity, or shall have 
mastered all the formal articles of a church creed, or shall 
be able to explain election metaphysically, or draw pre- 
cisely the line between free will and divine sovereignty, or 



HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 311 

that it shall be able to define even the atonement in accu- 
rate theological formula, or even the person of the blessed 
Lord himself in all his mysterious functions as both a di- 
vine and human Saviour. Enough, we say, if a glimmer of 
comprehension of these momentous and blessed truths has 
entered that sin-darkened heart, and led it to Jesus, and 
Jesus has received it, and washed away its guilt in his own 
blood ; it is not for us to assume to reject that Christ- 
accepted soul. We do well, I think, sometimes to heed 
those remarkable words of the Master: " Whosoever shall 
offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is 
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 
and he were cast into the sea." 

Knowledge of divine truth, then, we must not forget, is 
progressive. Faith ever increases by a law of its own di- 
vine unfolding. If God's daylight has truly dawned in a 
human soul, we need have no fear that the sun will not 
mount higher and higher towards the zenith of perfect 
day. 

Again, look for one moment at faith as modified by 
feeling; or to use a better term perhaps in this connection, 
personal experience. Writers on the Christian evidences or- 
dinarily divide the subject, as is well known, into two great 
departments — the external and the internal proofs of Chris- 
tianity. The former is the realm chiefly of intellectual per- 



312 HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 



ception ; the latter the realm chiefly of inward conscious- 
ness, or personal experience. 

Now no one need be told that when a sinner first comes 
believingly to Christ, he then only begins his Christian ex- 
perience; that he then only glances, as it were, at the title- 
page of the great volume of redemptive love put into his 
hands, and which is to be his lifelong study. Each day of 
the pilgrimage he is to turn a new leaf, and read a new 
chapter of his Saviour's personal grace to him ; and not un- 
til the last day of his earthly life will he turn the last leaf 
and close the volume; and if then an aged, rejoicing saint, 
standing on the brink of the grave, one should ask him 
what was his ground of confidence in Christ as a Saviour, 
he would turn to that closed Book, and say, "Every page, 
all the way through, has been only an added testimony to 
deepen in my soul the conviction of my Saviour's divinity 
and the truth of his blessed gospel." 

Or, to change the illustration, the Christian life is as one 
climbing a mountain. He begins in the depths of the val- 
ley, where the mists are heavy and the sun-rays well-nigh 
excluded. As gradually he ascends, the light increases and 
the view widens. An opening appears in this direction and 
the other through the range; and thus he toils upward, 
conquering slowly this and that overshadowing peak, until 
at last his feet are planted on the very topmost summit. 



HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 313 

And now what a scene opens before him! Glorious land- 
scapes far as the eye can reach, and on every side the far- 
circling horizon without a cloud or an obstruction! On 
such a sun-bathed mountaintop, I ween, that old apostle 
stood as we hear him ring out in that far-back century his 
paean of victory, "I know whom I have believed!" 

Thus, my friends, from the beginning to the end of the 
race does faith in every truly regenerate heart grow 
stronger and brighter from the ever-widening horizon of 
knowledge and experience. 

If this point may be taken as settled, that faith is in all 
cases a variable and progressive exercise of the regenerate 
soul, let us now turn back for a moment to contemplate yet 
more carefully the commencement of faith or belief in a sin- 
ful heart, as affected by the indwelling power of sin in that 
heart ; or in other words, by the habit of unbelief already 
fixed and rooted in that soul. You will not be surprised, 
I am sure, to hear it said that unbelief may become a habit 
with a man, just as any other mental exercise may grow and 
ripen into a habit. Thus one may acquire a habit of skep- 
ticism, and by no means is it a difficult thing to do. How 
often do we hear one in middle life saying, "Oh, that I had 
the simple-heartedness, the unsophisticated and undoubt- 
ing belief in religious things that I had in childhood or boy- 
hood! But there seems now a great gulf between me and 



314 HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 



any possibility of my becoming a Christian. I have out- 
grown my early habit of trustfulness. I do not wholly and 
unqualifiedly reject the Bible; I do not positively renounce 
Christianity as a revealed system of truth; but I am filled 
with doubts; I am tormented with unbelief; I am haunted 
by a kind of chronic distrust of all the religious truths I 
now hear advanced. It was not so once, but it is soi to- 
day; and for that reason belief, saving belief, in my case, 
appears well-nigh a moral impossibility." 

My friend, your case is not a singular one, nor a sur- 
prising one. For years you have resisted light; you are 
suffering the penalty. When you have known the truth of 
heaven, you have not received it as the truth of heaven. 
When you have known God, you have not glorified him as 
God, neither have been thankful. He has therefore retrib- 
utively suffered your understanding to be darkened. But 
what is now to be done? You cannot annihilate the past; 
you cannot undo instantly all the wrong-doing of years. By 
a single act of volition you cannot now, in a moment's 
time, drive out of your abused soul all the owls and bats of 
unbelief that so long have haunted your thoughts and 
imagination ; and on the other hand, it does not now lie 
within your moral ability instantly to will into exercise an 
unwavering belief in all the truths of Christianity. You 
cannot in an instant's time will into exercise, for example, 



HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 315 



perfect love towards God, or full-orbed and absolutely 
unquestioning confidence in Christ; or by a single act of 
will fill your soul this moment with an all-absorbing and 
all-prostrating penitence before your injured Maker. These 
things, I say, are not now possible. But let me tell you 
what is possible. You can take the preparatory steps to 
all this, and you can take those steps instantly. You can- 
not will yourself this instant at the top of a high mountain ; 
but you can instantly will and commence a series of steps 
which will at length take you there. 

What if the United States and Canadian governments, 
when contemplating a suspension-bridge across Niagara 
river, had taken the famous engineer of that work, Mr. 
Roebling, to the river's brink, and said, "Sir, span at once 
this yawning chasm with a highway hung in mid air, yet 
so strong that loaded railway trains may cross it in perfect 
safety." He might have justly replied, "The command, as 
now given, is impossible; but grant me my own method 
and time, and the work may be accomplished. " And what 
was his own method? First, a common kite was sent into 
the air, with an ordinary twine attached ; to this twine was 
affixed a small wire ; to this wire a larger wire ; to this larger 
wire, at length, bands and beams and cables of twisted iron; 
until finally the majestic aerial structure arched the river 
from shore to shore. 



316 HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 



My unconverted friend, as God's minister, I do not now 
ask you to span that terrible gulf of unbelief that yawns 
between your guilty soul and an injured God, with a faith 
as strong as Moses had when, the wilderness crossed, he 
stood on Mount Pisgah, or a faith as strong as Paul had, 
when, the race ended, he could look straight into glory: 
but I ask you to go to Christ with what confidence you 
have, and to go to him instantly. If there be in your heart 
to-day the faintest, feeblest flicker of a desire to know the 
pardoning love of Jesus, let that faint desire become, if 
nothing more, the insignificant string first to cross the 
river. Perhaps you say you are beset with fierce tempta- 
tions — tossed hither and thither on a sea of skepticism. 
Then go to Christ, as Peter went, on the water; and as you 
too sink beneath the waves, cry out with Peter's earnest- 
ness, "Lord, save, or I perish!" 

Have you seen a song-bird in a storm, seeking its nest 
in the coronal of some lofty tree? With what heroic pa- 
tience the tempest is braved; mounting upward only to be 
beaten back and back again, yet struggling forward, until 
the bending, swaying branch is reached; and then with 
what triumphant tenacity does the little conqueror cling 
to its resting-place, though rocked by the storm; and now, 
perhaps, in the very teeth of the tempest, sends up a note 
of sweetest music to blend with the howling of the gale! 



HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 317 

So do you, sin-tossed one, seek the only shelter for your 
lost soul; and in the very face of Satan's bufferings, send 
up into the bending ear of Jesus that trembling but ever- 
conquering cry of trust, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine 
unbelief!" 

Let me close with a few words of application to two 
classes of persons. 

First, those who have not yet found Christ, but confess 
to some desire, however faint, savingly to know him. I ask 
you to go at once to the cross. But you say you are 
not in a fit frame of mind or heart to seek religion now; 
you need preparation; you need a stronger faith. But I 
say to you, Go to Christ with what faith you have ; ask him 
for more, and see if you are denied. But, you still respond, 
I have not the depth of religious feeling I ought to have. 
Then with an old English preacher I say again, "If you 
cannot go to Christ on feeling, go to him on principle." 
In short, if there be one uncalloused spot in your soul to- 
day, one hallowed memory of childhood, one link between 
you and hope, one vulnerable joint in the harness where a 
shaft of God's Spirit may enter your heart; if you have a 
wish even to be a Christian; if merely your judgment and 
reason as yet are on the side of God and heaven and eter- 
nity — then make the most of that ; let that be the first step- 
ping-stone out of the terrible slough of your condemna- 



318 HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 



tion, the first round in the ladder by which you may mount 
upward towards hope and life eternal. Your judgment and 
reason, you confess, are on the side of God and Christ and 
heaven. 

Well, then, if your judgment and reason tell you to-day 
that religion is important, they tell you one thing more — 
that it is more important than anything else and all things 
else in the wide universe besides. Will you suffer, then, from 
my lips a simple suggestion? Resolve that for one week 
to come, you will devote at least one half-hour daily to 
honest meditation upon the subject of your personal sal- 
vation. Here and now resolve that, for that allotted pe- 
riod, no thought whatever shall come between your reason 
in its intensest exercise and this most momentous of 
themes possible for you to consider ; and then see if, before 
the week shall end, some awakening sense of your soul's 
fearful peril beneath the frown of a just God shall not drive 
you to bended knee, and wring from your now prayerless 
lips the agonized question of one of old, "What shall I do 
to be saved?" 

A single word, in closing, to another class. Some I may 
now address who are humbly hoping that they have al- 
ready begun to trust and follow the Saviour of sinners. Re- 
member then, dear friends, if truly you have entered the 
upward road, Jesus must be the "Finisher" as well as the 



HOW TO BEGIN TO BE A CHRISTIAN 319 



"Author" of your faith. Think not the conflict ended, but 
only begun, when at the cross you have found forgiveness. 
Think not to lay your armor off until at last the victor's 
crown, by the Master's hand, is on your brow. Be not dis- 
couraged if in your earlier experiences do not appear all 
the fruits of ripened discipleship. Go forward; light will 
increase and faith will strengthen. Be not disheartened if 
there come days of darkness, when feeling is fickle and 
hope is faint ; all the closer cling to the Master's side. Be 
not distressed if at first you do not experience all that over- 
powering sense of guilt you had anticipated. Follow Jesus, 
and more and more you will know yourself. Go up stream, 
and you will soon feel the power of the current. Strive to 
live an earnest and consistent Christian life in this ungodly 
world, and ere long you will unmistakably discover the 
power of a desperately wicked heart within. Moreover, 
remember this, if truly converted, conviction of sin, con- 
scious heart defilement before a holy God will increase to 
your dying hour. But go forward; "press toward the mark 
for the prize;" and in every season of temptation, until the 
goal is reached and faith has ended in sight, let this be the 
battle-prayer of your upward march: "Lord, I believe; help 
thou mine unbelief." 



TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF PLY- 
MOUTH CHURCH, WORCESTER 

May, 1894 



TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF 
PLYMOUTH CHURCH, WORCESTER. May, 1894. 

Down by the sea, overlooking the bay where the Pil- 
grims landed, stands a magnificent monument erected by 
this reverent nation some generations ago in honor of 
these remarkable men, and largely descriptive of their great 
work in history. Into the foundations alone of this stu- 
pendous structure were put fifteen hundred tons of granite. 
Upon the four corners of its broad pedestal were placed 
four symbolical figures, Law, Freedom, Education, Moral- 
ity, while surmounting the whole is the largest granite 
statue in the world — a colossal figure of Faith holding in 
one hand an open Bible, and with the upraised forefinger 
of the other pointing this nation to God. Would that that 
"sermon in stone" might instruct and warn the descendants 
of the Pilgrims to the latest generation! 

By the invincible heredity of its moral ideas Plymouth 
Rock has at length underpinned this continent, and for 
centuries to come, God helping us, shall remain the front 
doorstep of our whole American civilization. Upon a 
splinter of this old rock twenty-five years ago was planted 
this church, whose anniversary we now celebrate, and 



324 PLYMOUTH CHURCH ANNIVERSARY 

which in its first brief quarter-century of existence, by the 
great favor of God, has marvelously underpinned and un- 
dergirded Worcester with moral and spiritual power. 

Is it not now too late for any nation to forget that it is 
never safe to cut the umbilical tie between morality and re- 
ligion, faith and life, the highest weal for this world, and 
for the next? Our esteemed friends of the old mother 
church, but who still prefer to import both their theology 
and their ecclesiasticism from the banks of the Tiber, utter 
warnings loud and long in our ears against the peril of 
"godless schools" among us, as they choose to call them. 
But let me say to these excellent, and I must believe truly 
patriotic gentlemen, if possible to allay their fears, that a 
"godless school" is henceforth and forever impossible in 
a land that began with Plymouth Rock and remains true to 
its ancestral traditions. 

Like the monument there by the sea, so this church for 
twenty-five years has put into the hands of Christian faith 
God's open and unmutilated Book and held it up in the 
sight of all men. For this period this church has raised 
no crops, minted no money, woven no cloth, drawn no 
wire, constructed no looms, built no railroads, enacted no 
laws, administered no courts, taught no schools or univer- 
sities, and declared no dividends to its pew-holders, pay- 
able in checks that any sane bank would cash. And yet 



PLYMOUTH CHURCH ANNIVERSARY 325 



for these years this church, I am now bold to say, by ful- 
filling its one transcendent function of divine teaching, has 
added to the wealth of this city beyond the power of any 
board of trade or stock market to compute; indeed, from 
the beginning has been as the very ozone of God sweeping 
down from the celestial heights, to distend the nostrils, 
strengthen the heart, and redden the blood of our whole 
municipal prosperity. 

In recognition of this high public service, this united 
city by its representatives now meets to pay it honor. In 
this brilliant clerical symposium I see around me, my hon- 
ored brother, Dr. McCullagh, the pastor of this church, I 
suppose has introduced about every color of the denomi- 
national prism, with the hope of centering at last one pure 
white beam of theological glory upon this occasion. In- 
deed, since the "parliament of religions" at Chicago last 
year, it must be acknowledged that the religious world 
seems a good deal thrown into "pi" along mere dogmatic 
lines. In fact my own theological pedigree has always been 
a good deal mixed. My father was a Universalist, I was 
brought up with a Unitarian uncle, I was converted among 
the Methodists, I joined a Congregational church, and I 
graduated at a Presbyterian theological seminary, and my 
friends, the Baptists, for whom I have preached a good 
deal, are kind enough to say if I only had a little more 



326 PLYMOUTH CHURCH ANNIVERSARY 

water-front to my Biblical exegesis I could pass muster 
with them! 

Evidently, then, we meet to-night in a spirit of large 
brotherliness, so far as mere credal straight-jackets are 
concerned. But I do most earnestly hope, let me say, that 
we can all now stand together upon the platform of this 
Book, if not as a doctrinal rampart, yet as the one peerless 
ethical manual and the one flawless text-book for the spir- 
itual culture of our race. Matthew Arnold puts the Bible 
incomparably above all other books as "a book of con- 
duct," and I am ready to let it stand or fall by that test. 
If there is any more potent and self-luminous script on this 
planet to lift men Godward, I want to find it. If there is 
any grander force under all God's skies than this New Tes- 
tament of Jesus the Christ, when translated into daily hu- 
man living, to eliminate sin and sorrow ultimately from 
this footstool, I want to find it. Colonel T. W. Higginson, 
addressing the world's fair last autumn on "The Sympathy 
of Religions," in faultless elocution and golden English 
told his polyglot audience, that for us in America, the door 
out of sin and superstition was called "Christianity," but 
it was only a historical name, the mere "accident of a birth- 
place," while other nations had other "outlets," he assured 
them, equally safe and inviting; and with a dash of rhetori- 
cal rose-water right and left, over heathendom in general, 



PLYMOUTH CHURCH ANNIVERSARY 327 



he retired from the platform in a blaze of millennial elo- 
quence. But does not Colonel Higginson know, as every 
scholar knows, that Buddhism as a moral force, a social re- 
generator in the Orient, has been absolutely dead for 
more than two thousand years? While beginning with an 
ideal of reform almost Christlike in its self-abnegation and 
beautiful charity, it has degenerated into meaningless mum- 
meries until now it does absolutely nothing to exalt and 
beautify human life. Does not this graceful orator further 
know that Confucius, whose ethics he so admires, never 
spoke one generous word for woman, whose eloquent mod- 
ern champion he himself is? Does he not know that not 
one Chinese temple on our whole Pacific coast, ever ut- 
tered one protest against Chinese prostitution, the most 
intolerable moral stench now entering the nostrils of high 
heaven on our Western shore? Does he not know that all 
the leading Hindoo sects agree to-day perfectly on two 
points — the sanctity of the cow and the depravity of 
woman? When William H. Seward came back from his 
trip around the world he said, "All Asia has not a home." 
I ask, then, can the red cross of Clara Barton, with its ear 
to the ground, to catch the first outcry of human distress 
beneath the wide canopy, can the white cross of Frances 
E. Willard, preaching "A White Life for Two," can these 
magnificent women and their fellow workers, the crowning 



328 PLYMOUTH CHURCH ANNIVERSARY 

moral fruitage of nineteen luminous Christian centuries, 
now give no points to the Orient on the place of woman in 
an ideal Christian home? 

I appeal, then, from Colonel Higginson to Matthew Ar- 
nold, and say that this round globe wants the best "Book of 
Conduct" extant beneath all God's star-lighted dome, and 
it is the duty of Christian America to give it as speedily as 
possible to the peoples that now sit in darkness! 

And now by this same ethical test I abide at home. 
What are our churches doing for our city and for humanity 
at large? "By their fruits ye shall know them," said the 
great Teacher. Let us honestly face this winnowing chal- 
lenge that confronts every church and every disciple. For 
many years I have ranked myself with orthodox believers 
and preachers. But I want the best faith extant — the most 
vitalized, outworking and surcharged with heavenly 
power anywhere to be found, call it liberal or conservative, 
broad or narrow, Unitarian or Trinitarian, old or new. I 
want the religion henceforth that can be best utilized in the 
service of man. 

I believe in creeds ; but I want creeds that can be conju- 
gated into conduct, absorbed into the veins, and wrought 
into the fiber of actual manhood and womanhood around 
me. I believe in church zeal and fervent piety; but not 
simply that which effervesces through lips and lungs, for 



PLYMOUTH CHURCH ANNIVERSARY 329 



I have noticed that not the steam that hisses and fumes at 
the valves, but that which remains hidden and silent down 
in the burning heat of the engine, moves the train. It is a 
poor fireplace, I have learned, that sends all its heat up 
chimney, and I take but little stock in any church, however 
large or respectable, that sends a roaring blaze of devo- 
tions and credos toward heaven, but with no warmth left 
over for poor shivering humanity at its doors. I be- 
lieve in prayer with all the strength of my reason and the 
faith of my soul, but I believe most in prayer that does its 
level best every time itself to answer its own petitions. 
When Frederick Douglas was a slave, he tells us he prayed 
earnestly every night and morning for freedom, but when 
at last he got his eye on the North Star and began to pray 
with his legs as well as his lips he found out what the "ef- 
fectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man" meant! Now 
let me prophesy that the church which shall take the initia- 
tive most vigorously and persistently along these lines of 
human service, is to be the church of the future. The most 
altruistic church, I fully believe, shall be the church of the 
millennium — the true church of God, because the true 
church of man — whether you call it catholic or heretic, orth- 
odox or heterodox. By virtue of its transcendent objective 
it shall at last head the entire column, and fly the winning 
colors on the home stretch of the twentieth century. 



33Q PLYMOUTH CHURCH ANNIVERSARY 



And now in closing let me say that for the next twenty- 
five years, beyond a question, the battle-ground of con- 
tention between the churches is largely to be sifted from 
theology to sociology. And where can be found a text- 
book on ''social science" like this Bible? It was humor- 
ously said of the first settlers of Connecticut, that in their 
first town meeting they voted to live by the laws of God 
until they got time to make better, and I doubt if their civil 
code has been much improved to this day. "Law, freedom, 
education, morality" stand beneath the outspread covers of 
this holy Volume, down by the sea. "Law" — to glance 
merely at the first of the quadrangle — what has it done for 
New England, interpreted by an enlightened conscience? 
Take the fourth commandment. "Sunday," said Mr. Emer- 
son, "is the core of our civilization" — and he was no bigot ; 
"The best gift of the past to the present," said Theodore 
Parker, and he was no theological fossil. Try it, then, you 
gentlemen of the liberal faith, try your Continental Sun- 
day, with its godless adjuncts of greed and lust and license, 
for two hundred and fifty years and then show us your 
crop. Let us sample your men and women by the side of 
the old Pilgrim stock, and see if you have improved your 
human breed with your anti-Biblical sociology! For 
twenty-five years this church has stood staunchly by a hal- 
lowed Sabbath, and Worcester will never know its debt 



PLYMOUTH CHURCH ANNIVERSARY 331 

of gratitude to this pulpit and people for this one service 
rendered! 

But, it is said, these men of old overworked "law" and 
underworked the gentler forces of character. It is said 
they put more justice than love into their theology. It is 
one thing to assert ; it is another thing to prove. Do our 
modern thinkers forget that in a perfect theodicy love and 
righteousness never antagonize, but always necessitate each 
other? When Washington signed the death-warrant of 
Andre, it is said, his tears mingled with the ink with which 
he affixed his official autograph. Thus the light of human 
pity, shining through those falling tears, threw a rainbow 
of such ineffable moral grandeur athwart the dark front 
of justice, that men beholding it got a new conception of 
the union of law and of love in the government of God. 
My friends, love is not laxity. Goodness is not "goodiness" in 
any government, human or divine. Thus all the virtues 
and graces of a rounded and robust human character, root 
themselves in this marvelous Book, this old Bible of the 
ages, this lamp and light of God from above to guide our 
human feet. Hold it up, then, granite statue by the sea! 
Hold it up, pastors and peoples of this church to the latest 
generation — your one chart, your one beacon light for im- 
periled humanity, until the eternal port is gained. 



THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 

"And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the 
stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, 
they saw the stone was rolled away: for it was very great." — 
Mark 16 : 3, 4. 



THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 



This opening question of my text, you will remember, 
was the anxious inquiry of three sad-hearted women, as at 
early dawn on the third morning after the crucifixion, that 
first glorious Easter morning, they hastened forth from 
one of the gates of Jerusalem, carrying, as we read, sweet 
spices in contemplation of performing the last rites of af- 
fectionate honor to the lifeless form of Him, who, as they 
supposed, forgetting his own words, was yet sleeping the 
sleep of death. But as the steps of this mournful company 
drew near the resting-place of their beloved Dead, a sud- 
den recollection entered their minds. They remembered — 
for these faithful women, earliest at the sepulcher, were 
also last at the cross, and had lingered to witness the safe 
interment of the body of Jesus in the new tomb of Joseph 
of Arimathaea — they remembered that a stone of extraor- 
dinary size had been rolled against the aperture of the 
rocky house of death, wholly barricading its entrance. Ac- 
cordingly, they were brought to a sudden pause in anticipa- 
tion of an insuperable obstacle lying directly in the path 
of their pious and affectionate undertaking. "And they 
said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone 



336 THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 



from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, 
they saw that the stone was rolled away." And now, gaz- 
ing into the open and unobstructed enclosure, they see 
not, as they had expected, the dead Master, whose lifeless 
body they had come silently and tearfully to honor, but 
One clothed in glistering white and with a countenance 
like lightning, who thus addressed them: "Ye seek Jesus 
of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not 
here : behold the place where they laid him." Matthew, 
giving account of the scene, represents this shining angelic 
visitant as sitting on the stone itself, which had been rolled 
aside, thus symbolizing, might we not say? the complete 
and supernatural victory, now and forever achieved over 
the empire of death. 

Thus these disciples came, expecting to find a barred 
and darkened tomb ; they found one open and luminous, 
with celestial occupants. They came expecting to find a 
dead Christ; they found a risen one. They came with flow- 
ing tears and stricken hearts to perform only the last sad 
rites of hopeless grief; they departed with tidings of start- 
ling and wondrous joy. They came haltingly, expecting 
their steps would be arrested by a great and insurmount- 
able barrier; — but, "when they looked, they saw that the 
stone was rolled away." 

And now, my friends, in these few words of the evangel- 



THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 337 

ist, do we not learn on this joyful Easter Sabbath precisely 
what it is that Jesus, the world's risen Saviour, has done 
to illumine and beautify forevermore the final resting-place 
on this earth of the children of God, and to unshackle 
henceforth, to the end of time, the believing soul from the 
fear of death? Death has well been called, "the king of 
terrors." Gazed upon by the eye of sense, the sepulcher 
is the emblem of all darkness, hopelessness, uncertainty, 
solitude and corruption. In the grave are quenched for- 
ever all sublunary hopes. It is the voiceless land of ever- 
lasting stillness, whence no traveler returns, to report his 
journeyings. It is the windowless prison-house, whose 
adamantine doors sooner or later close on all earthly 
beauty, rank, wealth, ambition, pride, love, hate, joy and 
.sorrow. There is no> monster so cruel as the grave. "It 
spares none of woman born." Its mighty, devouring maw 
is distended wide as our sin-cursed globe. The whole 
world, says an ancient writer, is but one vast mausoleum of 
the departed. And even a sacred penman admonitorily 
writes, "There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor 
wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." All the testi- 
mony of our senses, then, and the whole gospel of nature 
to-day point us only to a shut tomb — a rock-bound sepul- 
cher, an imprisoned Christ. But Jesus entered the sepul- 
cher not to moulder back to dust — for God did not suffer 



338 THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 



his Holy One to see corruption — but he entered it to dispel 
its darkness, to break its fetters, and to throw wide open, 
forevermore, its charnel-chambers to the sunshine of im- 
mortal life. It is not necessary, brethren, that we now 
deny to the ancient world all belief in the resurrection of 
the body and the future existence of the soul. Unquestion- 
ably, these beliefs could claim to some extent a foothold in 
our world before the advent of Jesus of Nazareth. But the 
doctrine of immortality before Christ's day, as compared 
with that same doctrine after Christ's own resurrection and 
ascension, can be safely said is as the first streak of light 
struggling through the gates of the East, to the down- 
pouring radiance of a cloudless noonday. Christ alone can 
be said to have "brought life and immortality to light" be- 
yond the grave. He has conquered the grave, by himself 
stepping into it. He has vanquished the grim monster, 
death, by taking him to his own embrace. He has forever 
irradiated the tomb because he himself has lain in it and 
then "rolled away the stone." 

Turning now, for a moment, at this point to the early 
preaching of the apostles, we cannot fail to notice the 
striking emphasis which they constantly put on the resur- 
rection of Jesus as the very key-note of their heavenly 
message, and the foundation doctrine on which they built 
all their brightest hopes for the future. Directly after the 



THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 339 



ascension, returning from Olivet, they begin to preach 
"through Jesus the resurrection from the dead." To the 
Corinthians Paul wrote: "If Christ be not risen, then is our 
preaching vain, and your faith is also vain ... ye are yet 
in your sins." And when this same dauntless apostle stood 
on Mars' Hill, in the midst of the proud philosophers of pa- 
gan Athens, he unhesitatingly chose the same wonderful 
text: "He preached unto them," the record tells us, "Jesus, 
and the resurrection." And just because, as a matter of 
history, Christ had now already become the first fruits of 
all that sleep in him, could this same apostle break forth 
into that impassioned apostrophe unequalled for sublimity 
in any language, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, 
where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the 
strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which 
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" 

Through the entire apostolic era this seems to have been 
the one glorious topic on which the disciples constantly 
dwelt. Peter, you remember, begins his epistles to the 
churches with this overture of jubilation: "Blessed be the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according 
to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively 
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 
John, latest of the apostolic penmen, in the Apocalypse 
gives us picture after picture of the Church ascendent and 



THE STOXE ROLLED AWAY 



glorified, hymning their ceaseless praises in yonder city 
of light, where death is forever swallowed up in victory. 
One foremost object, then, of Christ's mission to this 
world, it cannot now be doubted, was to abolish death and 
forever discrown the monster as the boastful king of ter- 
rors to the people of God. A mightier than death has now 
entered that dark realm and vanquished the tyrant in the 
very citadel of his power. Hence stands forth to-day on 
the open page of the world's history, as well as on the 
forefront of this Xew Testament, as indisputable and 
accomplished, the fact that the stone has been rolled away 
from the door of the sepulcher by the ascended Son of 
God. 

And yet, my friends, like those three downcast women 
on that happy, blessed morning, so do many disciples still 
draw near the sepulcher with timid and halting footsteps. 
It is an instinct of our nature, never quite overcome, I am 
led to think, while the grave is seen at a distance, for us to 
say, each one of us, "Who shall roll us away the stone?" 
For a wise purpose our Creator has implanted in every hu- 
man breast a natural dread of death. It is a dread and an 
apprehension, that no one, I am satisfied, will ever fully 
get rid of, at least not until the last hour is reached. We 
are accustomed in our imaginations to surround the hour 
of mortal dissolution with every form and image of physi- 



THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 341 

cal repulsiveness and suffering*. But so profound a thinker 
as Lord Bacon remarks of death as a mere physical phe- 
nomenon, "It is as natural to die as it is to be born, and to 
a little infant perhaps the one is as painful (and as painless) 
as the other." An English physician of wide celebrity and 
practice, Sir Benjamin Brodie, has said that "never but 
two instances fell under his own observation where in the 
immediate act of dying was manifested any fear of death, 
as a mere physical pain." This, then, is to be said, that the 
merciful Author of our being seems to have given his hu- 
man children the fear of death so long as he intends they 
shall live, but kindly takes away that fear when he intends 
they shall die. 

But, writes that great master of the human heart, the 
Apostle Paul, "the sting of death is sin." Ah, my friends, 
I cannot think it is the mere pang of physical dissolution 
that so agitates men as they approach the unseen world. 

"To die — to sleep, 
No more ; and, by a sleep, to say we end 
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks 
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wished. 

To die, to sleep — 
To sleep ! perchance to dream ! Ay, there's the rub ; 
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come, 
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, — 
Must give us pause." 



342 THE STOXE ROLLED AWAY 

Did death, indeed, end all, were there no spirit-hereafter, 
no righteous awards to be meted out by and by, accord- 
ing to deeds done in the body, then calmly might we lay 
us down to die, as to our nightly slumber. But has a 
Christian anything to fear at that tribunal with an Al- 
mighty Advocate by his side? Yet it cannot be denied 
that many true Christians, looking at death while yet at 
a distance, have apprehensively asked with those three 
women, "Who shall roll us away the stone from the door 
of the sepulchre ?" But as they have drawn nearer, to their 
surprise, they have looked and seen that the stone was 
rolled away. How often thus has God been better to his 
children than their fears ! 

While death, then, is at a distance, we dread it. It is 
natural for us to dread it. It is right for us to dread it. It 
is right for us to cling to this world. God made us to cling 
to this world and the things that are in this world. He has 
given us all these earthly affinities and appendencies, and 
our instinctive love of life and dread of death, so long as 
we are in health and strength, is clearly designed by our 
ITaker to serve a wise and beneficent purpose in the econo- 
mies of this world. But when we shall be called to die, to 
tread the shadowed Valley, then the great Death Con- 
queror, if we have put our souls into his infinite keeping, 
our Elder Brother, will go before us. Tenderly he will 



THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 343 



point out the stepping-stones for our descending feet, and 
we shall be lifted up with an infinite and unexpected 
grace of courage, and our imagined terrors, we shall find, 
one by one, are vanishing; and when we reach the sepul- 
cher, doubtless, to our speechless amazement, we shall find 
that the stone has been already rolled away, and instead of 
darkness within is only light and unspeakable glory. 

Once more I wish just to say, right at this point, that to 
my thinking the Christian world is slow, very slow, even 
at this late day, to receive into its faith and hope all the 
fulness of comfort contained in this New Testament doc- 
trine of a risen Christ and an open tomb. We somehow 
continue to feel that our loved ones, who have been taken 
from us, are still locked in the cold embrace of the grave. 
We continue to walk sadly and look downward through 
tears of repining grief, long after we should have learned 
to look up through tears of Christian rejoicing. We linger 
around the Marble City of the Dead, and the shut vaults 
of mortal corruption, when we should rather turn to hear 
an angelic voice, "He is not here; he is risen." And I must 
think, beloved, there is far too much still clinging to our 
modern Christian faith of that old Jewish and pagan super- 
stition of some dark under-world of temporary spiritual 
abode, an intermediate state, or purgatorial region, where 
even believing souls, imprisoned, await the final judgment- 



344 THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 



hour and the resurrection morning. But for one, I say to 
you frankly, I can find no such closed sepulcher as that 
presented to my yearning faith in all the blessed words of 
my risen Lord. "To-day shalt thou be with me in para- 
dise," was his promise to the dying penitent thief, and the 
incontrovertible drift and conclusion of all inspired teach- 
ing, as it seems to me, is, that when Christ's saints shall 
be absent from the body they will be present with their glo- 
rified King and Lord. No, for myself, I cannot believe 
that the dark sepulcher shall have power to enchain for an 
hour the ransomed spirit which angels wait to convoy 
home. I believe that when at last earth's threshold is 
crossed, the upper gateway will swing open at once to God's 
victorious saints. So was it with a Christian statesman at 
Washington, of whom we read a few years ago, who in his 
last illness desired to be raised on his pillow, that he might 
behold once more the capitol of his country ; but just as his 
eyes rested on the lofty, sun-bathed marble dome, his de- 
parting spirit seemed to transform the earthly building into 
the unbuilt temple above, and he expired at that moment, 
with the ecstatic words on his lips, "Beautiful! beautiful! I 
see the pearly gates, the golden streets." "It is so delight- 
ful dying," said brilliant Bishop Gilbert Haven, as his great,, 
burning heart was ceasing to beat, at his mother's home 
in Maiden. "The angels are here. God lifts me up so in 



THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 345 



his arms I cannot see the River of Death. There is no 
river. It is all light." Wrote the well-known author, John 
S. C. Abbott, to a friend in his last illness: "I am floating 
upward into heaven. I am gliding away unto God. I have 
heard of the 'shadow of death,' but I have yet caught no 
glimpse of it. For five months I have not been dressed. 
But they have been five of the happiest months of an un- 
usually prosperous life of seventy-one years. I have not 
known an hour of gloom. Being free from pain and ever 
ascending the mountain, I hope that God will continue to 
lead me until I reach its serene and cloudless summit, 
where the blessed angels will come and take me." 

Thus, my dear friends, does this gospel of our hope to- 
day bring us an absolutely conquered sepulcher; death 
shorn of his power; his darkest malice now able only to 
hasten the hour of our eternal release. No longer is the 
grave to be looked upon by God's child as a dread door- 
way leading downward to some vague under-world of pur- 
gatorial or Stygian gloom, but a triumphal, garlanded 
arch, under which God's ransomed shall go forth into the 
light, now inconceivable, of instantaneous and everlasting 
joy. "And they said among themselves, "Who shall roll 
us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?" 

But I cannot forget, as I now close, that some are here 
to-day who have no experience of a risen Saviour's forgiv- 



346 THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 



ing love. As their feet move on toward the inevitable end, 
alas, all is still dark and cold and drear. They have no eye 
of faith to pierce those dark portals to yonder world of im- 
mortal blessedness. They can read no title clear, for them, 
to mansions in the skies. For them the ponderous stone 
still bars a hopeless sepulcher and their future is as un- 
lighted and cheerless as though no Saviour had hung on 
the cross or risen again for their justification. 

They are often told of death's quick and stealthy ap- 
proach, but they close their ears; they will not listen. 
They have no time to attend to such matters now. But 
when death, at length, shall knock at the door of their 
throbbing hearts, he will get a hearing. Yes, he will get 
a hearing ! The busiest and giddiest of mortals must take 
time to listen to his message — and then they will excuse 
themselves no longer. A death-bed, it has been well said, 
is a wonderful reasoner. Many a proud objector has it si- 
lenced without a word, who, but a little before, defied all 
the ability of earth to shake the foundations of his confi- 
dence. Yes, all is well with Christless ones while the cur- 
tain is up and the puppet show of life goes gaily on, but 
when the rapid representation draws to its close and every 
hope of longer respite is precluded, how differently do all 
things appear! Oh, that men would believe that the suit- 
able time for the last messenger is not when he is at our 



THE STONE ROLLED AWAY 347 



side, feeling for our heartstrings ; oh, not then, but while 
in health, while the brain is clear and unfevered, while 
Jesus waits to be gracious and while the Spirit gently whis- 
pers, "Sinner, come," and all the voices of God's merciful 
and sparing providence are saying, "Behold, now is the 
accepted time ; behold, now is the day of salvation." 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST ? 

"What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ 
Matt. 27: 22. 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 



This was the earnest, eager question of Pilate the 
Roman governor to the Jewish multitude who stood before 
him on the morning of the crucifixion. The night before, 
Jesus had been basely betrayed by Judas and dragged away 
to the palace of the high priest. But the Jews soon be- 
thought them that they had no lawful power to pronounce 
sentence of death upon Christ, now in their custody. Ac- 
cordingly, with the first morning light they hurry him be- 
fore Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator, on a fabricated 
charge of treason, that he had sought to make himself a 
king in place of Caesar. Pilate sees 1 at a glance that the 
accusation is groundless, and that Jesus is simply a vic- 
tim of Jewish malice and envy; but on hearing this spe- 
cific charge, he thinks it prudent to hold a private interview 
with the accused. Accordingly, he himself puts the ques- 
tion, "Art thou the King of the Jews?" Still more strongly 
assured by this examination of our Saviour's guiltlessness 
of any treasonable designs, he reappears before the excited 
throng and says, "I find in him no fault at all." This 
declaration, however, seems only to kindle the fury of the 
mob to a yet higher pitch, and they cry out that the teach- 



352 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

ings of Jesus have stirred up all Jewry as far as Galilee. 
Pilate now bethinks him of sending Jesus to Herod, the 
tetrarch, that he may adjudicate the troublesome case and 
thus relieve himself of his perplexity. But Herod soon re- 
turns the prisoner upon his hands. 

Greatly to increase Pilate's embarrassment, at this junc- 
ture, as he sits upon the judgment-seat, his wife sends a 
hurried and mysterious message in these words: "Have 
thou nothing to do with that just man : for I have suf- 
fered many things this day in a dream because of him." 
But Pilate, alas, must have something to do with Jesus ; 
Jesus is on his hands, and he must either acquit or con- 
demn. 

Now another thought occurs to the distressed and vacil- 
lating mind of the Roman officer. It was his annual cus- 
tom on the return of the passover feast to release unto the 
Jews some incarcerated criminal, whomsoever they might 
select. It so happened that a notorious insurrectionist and 
murderer, named Barabbas, was at this moment in cus- 
tody. Pilate reasons with himself, Surely the Jews cannot 
prefer Barabbas to Jesus. So, with high hopes of a speedy 
escape from his painful dilemma, he puts before them the 
ingenious alternative, "Whom will ye that I release unto 
you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?" To his 
astonishment and dismay the appalling shout comes back 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 353 



from the maddened throng, "Barabbas!" The governor's 
heart sinks within him, and, with a voice and manner now 
almost imploring, he cries out, "What shall I do then 
with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, 
Let him be crucified ! And the governor said, Why, what 
evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, 
Let him be crucified !" 

The foiled and disappointed procurator can conceive of 
but one more possible expedient. He says, "I will there- 
fore chastise him, and let him go," hoping that by this pre- 
liminary punishment some chord of pity may be touched 
in the breasts of the multitude, and their bloodthirsty 
clamor be stayed. So he hands Jesus over to the ruthless 
soldiery, who subject him to the horrible punishment of 
the Roman scourge, and then they put on him a purple 
robe, and on his head a crown of thorns, and in his hand 
a reed, for a scepter (mocking emblems of royalty!). Pilate 
himself leads forth the suffering Saviour, thus humiliated 
and bleeding, and placing him in full view of the im- 
patient populace, points to the meek and silent victim of 
their blind rage, and simply says : "Behold the man \" 
Ecce homo! 

Painters have striven to reproduce that scene. Penitent 
and reverent hearts in every age have adoringly sought to 
recall that marvelous spectacle of incarnate humility. But 



354 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

on the pitiless, tumultuous throng before the palace gate 
that scene was powerless. Only louder, fiercer, more irre- 
pressible went up the bitter, bloody cry, "Crucify him, cru- 
cify him!" Now, mingled with these vociferations, the 
warning words reach the ear of the time-serving governor, 
"If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend : who- 
soever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar." 
That final voice settled the question. Pilate could not 
hazard the suspicions of Caesar. He surrenders the issue. 
Jesus is delivered to the mob and hurried quickly away to 
the place of crucifixion. The irresolute and conscience- 
smitten man, however, makes one more futile attempt to 
shift from himself the responsibility of his monstrous crime. 
In imitation of a Jewish ceremonial, he takes water, and 
dramatically washing his hands before the multitude, with 
lying lips says to them, "I am innocent of the blood of this 
just person." Ah, miserable self-deluded man, to think 
with a few drops of water to wash out that damning con- 
science stain, that thenceforth shall burn and blast thy 
guilty soul forever! 

In retracing the several steps of this trial scene, before 
the bar of Pilate, it is not difficult, I think, my friends, now 
to perceive that the Roman governor's judicial integrity 
and, indeed, his own moral and spiritual nature all pivoted 
on the simple answer he should now give to his own dis- 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 355 



tressed and burdened inquiry, "What shall I do then with 
Jesus, which is called Christ?" Alas, in that critical hour 
he made an unrighteous decision — a fatal disposal of God's 
guiltless Son — and thereby whelmed his own soul in hope- 
less condemnation. 

For a moment, then, at this point let us pause to dis- 
cover, if we may, precisely what was the sin of Pilate in 
this great and fearful drama of human guilt that ended 
with the crucifixion. Pilate's sin I take to be simply this : 
he was unwilling to act up, unhesitatingly, to his clear 
convictions of right and duty. He was fully empowered 
by his judicial office, instantly and unconditionally, to ac- 
quit Jesus of the malicious charge brought against him. 
He was himself fully convinced of his innocence. For the 
third time during the trial, he said to the Jewish rabble, 
"What evil hath he done? I find no cause of death in 
him." Pilate's legal judgment, then, was satisfied perfectly 
that the indictment against Christ could not stand a fair 
trial. His conscience, moreover, was on the Saviour's side. 
After each interview, you remember, he returns with only 
the one intensified assertion, "I find no fault in him!" And 
in that last blasphemous ritual of the hand-washing, his 
conscience bore irrepressible witness to the character of 
Jesus as a "just person" — while that very admission now 
brands his own name with eternal infamy. 



356 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

So, again, all the retributive moral instincts of Pilate's 
breast were on the side of Christ and in favor of acquittal. 
The remarkable dream of his wife evidently startled him. 
When at one point in the trial, the Jews casually remarked, 
"We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because 
he made himself the Son of God," the Evangelist records, 
that when Pilate heard that saying,, he was sore afraid, and 
went again into the judgment-hall, and said unto Jesus, 
"Whence art thou?'*'' Indeed, from the very outset a pain- 
ful apprehension seemed gaining steadily on Pilate's mind 
that he was dealing with a personage more than human. 
His whole moral nature was somehow strangely stirred 
and vivified by contact with that wonderful prisoner on 
his hands. All his higher nature then decided for Jesus — 
his judgment, his conscience, his religious sensibilities, and 
all his instinctive fears of coming retribution. Why, then, 
did he give sentence against Christ? In brief, it must 
now be said that Pilate in this trial stands before all time 
a self-convicted moral coward. 

There was no evidence that he was specially lacking in 
physical courage. On many occasions during his Judasan 
procuratorship, he evinced great ferocity and force of na- 
ture. Secular history describes him as a man of vehement 
passions, obstinate temper and, at times, great rashness of 
public policy. But he was absolutely minus moral cour- 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 357 



age. He dared not follow his own convictions of duty in 
the face of an influential public opinion to the contrary. 
Lacking moral courage, he lacked, of course, all true de- 
cision of character. Indeed, this was his one fatal weak- 
ness disclosed in this trial. He was arrogant, wilful, ca- 
pricious, impulsive, but he had no manly executiveness of 
character. He trifled with his own convictions, he dallied 
with his own conscience. He procrastinated, hesitated, 
shuffled. He suffered himself to be driven from point af- 
ter point in his righteous defence of his prisoner, and that 
by the empty clamors of a mob. And at last, in a kind of 
nerveless despair, in a fit of sheer impotency of resolution, 
he seemed passively to resign Jesus to the rage of his mur- 
derers, so pitiable to witness. But now back of all this 
moral irresolution was another reason for Pilate's adverse 
sentence, and probably far more influential than any yet 
noticed over his ultimate decision. Pilate was a notorious 
aspirant for political honors. He held his present office of 
procurator by appointment of the jealous Tiberius of 
Rome. The least suspicion of his loyalty reaching the ear 
of the irascible emperor, however unfounded, would prob- 
ably prove instantly fatal to all his ambition. The good 
will of the Jewish populace, then, in the face of such a dan- 
ger, must be secured at all hazards. He, therefore, makes 
his decision. Jesus must be sacrificed on the altar of per- 



358 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 



sonal popularity. He consents to crucify the innocent Son 
of God, that he may not imperil that glittering prize of sta- 
tion, rank and power that floats before his idolatrous 
vision. He makes his choice. He chooses the world at 
the cost of his soul. Yet, wretched man, he misses even 
the bauble for which he has risked everything. A few years 
after the fearful tragedy enacted on Calvary, and for which 
history will ever hold Pontius Pilate officially responsible, 
a disappointed and broken-hearted man, like Judas Isca- 
riot he ended his wretched life, history informs us, with 
his own hand and went to a suicide's grave, only to be fol- 
lowed by the universal execrations of mankind. "What 
shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?" Alas, 
for the answer which history must now evermore write 
against that burdened question of the Praetorian palace in 
Jerusalem ! 

But is it a question that has never pressed upon human 
consideration, save that of the Roman procurator, long 
centuries ago? Stands it not forth to-day, my friends, the 
one great, central, burning truth of human history, that 
Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of Galilee, the Christ of the 
manger and the cross, was not disposed of in that brief 
trial-hour in old Judaea? What saith the Scripture? "But 
this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, 
sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth ex- 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 359 



pecting till his enemies be made his footstool." Jesus 
lives, and is alive forevermore, the risen, mediating and 
omnipresent Saviour of all men. He condescends still to 
stand at the door of every human heart, for whom once he 
died, suing for that heart's finite friendship. He conde- 
scends, as when in the flesh, to appeal to every human rea- 
son, to be accepted or rejected at its bar. He even hum- 
bles himself to stand at the judgment-seat of every human 
conscience, to be acknowledged King or to be crowned 
once more with thorns, mocked as malefactor. And, my 
friends, strange truth now to declare, on your lips and on 
mine to-day, the momentous question of Roman Pilate is 
individually pertinent, What shall I do with Jesus which is 
called Christ? 

From this point forward, very briefly, let me press upon 
your thoughtful notice a few considerations. And just no 
more than for Pilate of old, is it possible for any intelligent 
student of the Christian record to-day to dismiss Jesus, the 
one effulgent personality running through the whole gos- 
pel story, unexamined, from the court of his own judgment 
and conscience. Out of his written Word, as once out of 
the clouds of heaven, does God now say to every human 
soul, 'This is my beloved Son : hear him" 

The Saviour presents himself to-day to every human be- 
ing personally, as Redeemer, Lord and King. From the 



3 6o WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

lips of his inspired messengers, we hear the uncompromis- 
ing words, "There is none other name under heaven given 
among men, whereby we must be saved/' "He that be- 
lieveth on the Son hath everlasting life : and he that be- 
lieveth not the Son shall not see life ; but the wrath of God 
abideth on him." Jesus, then, stands arraigned to-day, not 
by a mere figure of speech, but at the bar of our individual 
moral intelligence. We cannot dismiss his case. We can- 
not ignore his claims. We cannot waive his trial. He is 
on our hands. We cannot transfer him to the jurisdiction 
of any other human potentate or investigator. It is a 
question for us personally to settle, "What shall I do with 
Jesus?" By all the imperatives of our moral being, we 
are shut up to a verdict, for or against. Like Pilate of old, 
we must now crown or scourge, acquit or condemn, the 
Son of God. 

Still further, each one of us, unshared by any other, must 
take the full responsibility of our decision. Never again 
can any one of us be as if Jesus had not died and we had 
never heard of redeeming mercy, proffered through his 
name. "If I had not come and spoken unto them," said 
Christ, "they had not had sin : but now they have no cloak 
for their sin." "He that despised Moses' law died without 
mercy under two or three witnesses : of how much sorer 
punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 361 



hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted 
the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an 
unholy thing?" No human being who has heard the gospel 
message and the gospel invitation can now shift from him- 
self a tremendous personal interest in that great redemp- 
tive transaction on Calvary. 

But now, having gone so far, by the exigencies both of 
logic and Scripture, I must go one step further. As God's 
minister and on the warrant of his Word, I must now 
say that every human soul under Christian light is 
shut up to-day to a yet more desperate alternative. Even 
Pilate's stern breast quailed before that first brutal outcry, 
(i Crucify him." But you and I to-day must do one of 
two things — let me speak with all caution and sobriety of 
language — we must hang our idol-sin on .the cross, or we 
must hang, once more, our Saviour there. We must cru- 
cify the darling sin of our guilty souls, or that darling sin 
to-day will crucify afresh the Son of God. Oh, it was sin, 
incorrigible heart sin, that first nailed Jesus to the accursed 
tree ! It is this same blind unbelief, this same cruel heart- 
rejection of dying love by impenitent ones, that is now 
opening afresh all those flowing wounds. If, then, we love 
sin more than we love Him who died to save us from our 
sins, we consent unto his death, and are accessories after 
the fact of that stupendous tragedy on Calvary. 



362 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 

Do you repel such words as injurious? Do you say 
to me that the sting of impenitent sin cannot be as ven- 
omous in human hearts to-day as in that of heathen Pilate? 
Are we better by nature than he? And by practice, if still 
rejecters of the world's risen Lord, are we sinning against 
light and love and mercy, less amazing than he? Pilate 
lived in the twilight of Christian evidence, we in its noon- 
day blaze. Pilate, at most, reached only a dim glimmering 
suspicion of the radiant Kingship of Jesus. We, without 
a doubt, now confess him, with Peter, to be the "Christ of 
God." All the concentrated light of eighteen centuries is 
now focused and flooded on the pathway of practical irre- 
ligion. All the amazing grace of heaven, every unbelieving 
heart is to-day steadily resisting. All the tender pleading 
and measureless love of Jesus every Christless soul is now 
scorning and despising. Oh, then, tell me not that that 
wretched, pagan Pilate was a sinner above all others, or 
that if we, in this marvelous century of Christian oppor- 
tunity, do not repent, that we shall not all likewise perish! 
"What shall I do then with Jesus?" was Pilate's burdened 
question. It is a question, believe me, which weighs down 
many an uneasy and troubled heart to-day. 

But the hour hastens. Let us remember when, with each 
of us, the question of questions will be, not "What shall I 
do with Jesus?" but "What will Jesus do with me?" Look 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 363 

yonder, Jesus humiliated at the bar of Pilate; but, yonder, 
Pilate at the bar of Jesus — Jesus regnant and glorified. 
"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the 
holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of 
his glory : and before him shall be gathered all nations : and 
he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd di- 
videth his sheep from the goats/' On the shore of Lake 
Lucerne, in Switzerland, there rises sharp and frowning 
against the western sky a notable mountain. It is called 
Mount Pilatus. Its dark and cavernous sides are belted 
with forests of the gloomy fir-tree, and around its lofty and 
lightning-scarred brow, ill-omened birds constantly circle. 
There exists a popular legend, in that country, that after 
years of remorse, Pontius Pilate, with the mark of Cain on 
his brow, ended his wretched life by plunging into the 
storm-lashed lake at the top of this mountain. But the 
vexed spirit of the murderer of Jesus could not rest. A 
spectral form, the peasants say, is often seen to emerge 
from the dismal lake, wash his hands in the black waves, 
and then wring them in an unavailing agony — faint fore- 
judgment, must we not say? of that final sentence from the 
lips of the Saviour- Judge, when all nations shall be gath- 
ered before Him! 

"What will we do with Jesus which is called Christ ?" 
Perhaps some, without the blessed hope, are ready to say f 



364 WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 



"I am disposed to do right with Jesus. I am disposed to 
treat him justly and kindly." Ah, — but will you? Pilate, 
remember, was disposed to< do right with Jesus. He bore 
him no malice. From first to last, during all that fearful trial, 
gladly would he have liberated him. Ah, but those scribes! 
those Pharisees! that shouting populace! imperial Caesar! 
glittering worldly ambition! Oh, no, it could not be done. 
Jesus must be sacrificed. "Take him away." 

You know what you ought to do with your inviting Sav- 
iour to-day, my unsaved friend, — but will you? Will you? 
Oh, the world, pleasure, riches, brilliant worldly hopes! 
Do you say, I cannot now decide; I cannot yet face the 
frown of the world; I cannot yet crown Jesus Lord and 
King of my world-idolizing soul? Take him away! Take 
him away! "Crucify him!" Are you ready to meet that 
decision yonder? Oh, that from some lips here to-day 
might now go up to the waiting ranks above a more 
blessed choice ! "This will I do with Jesus : I will open the 
door of my long-shut heart and bid him royally enter. I 
will welcome him to this lost and guilty soul of mine, to 
cleanse, to bless and to save. I will lay everything at his 
feet, as He has given all for me. Gratefully, joyfully will 
I confess his name before a gainsaying world, that at the 
last, when my helpless soul shall stand in judgment, his 
words to me may be, not the fearful sentence, "Depart," 



WHAT SHALL I DO WITH CHRIST? 365 



but those other words, full of immortal cheer, "Come, ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for 
you from the foundation of the world." "What shall I do 
with Jesus which is called Christ ?" 



TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 



TRIBUTES TO DR. GOULD 



A summary of the career of Dr. Gould appeared in "The 
Worcester of 1898" and the same, reproduced here, gives 
succinctly the leading features of a life that was fraught 
with good. 

Instead of the traditional "three brothers" emigrating to this 
country, it is said that between the years 1635 and 1655 more than 
twenty persons by the name of Gould came from different parts of 
England to find homes in New England. Among the most noted 
of these was the Rev. Thomas Gould who settled in Charlestown, 
and Zaccheus Gould who located in Lynn. Some members of this 
widely distributed Gould family proudly brought with them across 
the sea a coat of arms, with this device: a powerful right arm up- 
lifted and grasping a sledge-hammer, while underneath were the 
words, Volens et potens, "willing and able." 

George H. Gould, son of Rufus and Mary Gould, was born in 
Oakham, Massachusetts, February 20, 1827. His father was a 
native of Charlton and his mother was born in Rutland. The 
Henrys came originally from Scotland and settled chiefly in Vir- 
ginia, its most famous representative being Patrick Henry, the great 
Revolutionary orator, and first governor of Virginia. It has always 
been a pleasing postulate of Dr. Gould's imagination, although the 
family links are not so closely welded as he might wish, that through 
his mother he is a direct descendant of Patrick Henry. Thus the 
blood of both England and Scotland mixed in his veins. 

Dr. Gould fitted for college at Monson Academy, entered Am- 
herst College in 1846 and was graduated in the class of 1850. He 
then entered Union Theological Seminary, left it during the middle 
year to attend Professor Park's brilliant course of lectures on system- 
atic theology at Andover, and returning to Union Seminary for his 
third year was graduated in 1853. Just before leaving the seminary he 
received an invitation to become colleague pastor with the Rev. 



3/0 TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 



Albert Barnes of Philadelphia, but at this period, suffering much 
from ill health, from overstudy, and especially from lack of gymnastic 
training, now so happily enjoyed by students, he went West to en- 
gage with an old college friend in railroad engineering with the hope 
of recovering his health ; but instead contracted a malignant form of 
malaria in the swamps skirting the shore of Lake Michigan and this 
misfortune was the one bane and misery of his whole subsequent 
physical life. 

During these two years, as strength allowed, he preached intermit- 
tently in various cities of the West, — Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, 
Beloit and other places, and also lectured in lyceum courses in sev- 
eral states of the Northwest during the winter — this whole experience 
covering about two years. 

Soon after, Doctor Gould formed an acquaintance with the late 
John B. Gough, the distinguished temperance advocate and orator, 
and the friendship then formed continued until the death of the 
latter. Accepting Mr. Gough's invitation to go with him to Eng- 
land, the next two and one half years were spent abroad, one 3 r ear in 
England, four months in Edinburgh, six in Paris, two in Rome, 
several in Germany, besides two summers in Switzerland. 

Before his return to this country Mr. Gould received a unanimous 
call to the pastorate of the Bowdoin Street Church, Boston, for- 
merely Doctor Lyman Beecher's, but could not consider it 

Returning home in October, 1862, he married Nellie M. Grant, 
daughter of Jonathan Grant, Esquire, and a sister of "Willie 
Grant," the young martyr of Balls Bluff whose tragic death inspired 
the writing of "The Vacant Chair." For two years from this time 
he was stated supply of Olivet Church, Springfield. Massachusetts, 
meanwhile receiving urgent calls from the Sixth Street Presbyterian 
Church, Troy, New York, and Park Church, Norwich, Connecticut. 

In December, 1864, he was settled as pastor of the old Center 
Church in Hartford, Connecticut, in which call and settlement it was 
stipulated that he was, by reason of impaired health, to preach but 
one sermon each Sunday. Here he remained six years, it being the 
first and only formal settlement over any church. 

Dr. Gould returned to Worcester to make it his permanent home 
in 1870, and during the next two or three years supplied for va- 
rious intervals the pulpits of Central Church and Union Church in 
Providence. Rhode Island ; Walnut Avenue and Immanuel Churches 
in Boston, and then began with Piedmont Church in Worcester in 



TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 371 



its infancy, and enjoyed a most sacred, tender and delightful acting 
pastorate with that beloved people for five years. Subsequently, on 
the retirement of Dr. Cutler, he preached two and a half years in 
Union Church in Worcester. New edifices were erected by both 
Piedmont and Union during his stay among them. While at Pied- 
mont Church, Doctor Gould was invited to the pulpit of Amherst 
College as a College preacher and in connection therewith to the 
"Chair of Biblical History." About the same time overtures were 
made to him by the Third Church, of New Haven, Connecticut, for 
a service of one sermon per Sunday for one year, at a salary of 
six thousand dollars. Thus his whole ministerial life, by the order- 
ing of Providence, has been largely fragmentary, continually inter- 
rupted by chronic disability, but like some other notable invalids he 
has been able to perform a great deal of work. 

Dr. George Leon Walker of Hartford writing to "The Congrega- 
tionalist" some years ago on the unfortunate invalidism of certain 
prominent clergymen and professors in our seminaries, after other 
concrete citations, makes the following eulogistic reference to the 
subject of this sketch: "The very eloquent minister of Piedmont 
Church at Worcester, who certainly has no superior in New Eng- 
land." 

John B. Gough, who when at home was Dr. Gould's parishioner 
for five years at Piedmont Church, says in his autobiography : "In 
1856 I first met Dr. Gould and was fascinated by his preaching. He 
is emotional with no sensationalism. He speaks with an earnestness 
that convinces you he believes all he utters, with a deep pathos re- 
vealing the tenderness of his own nature, an eloquence perfectly nat- 
ural, a face radiant at times when he utters some lofty thought. 
He has no monotonous repetitions : there is nothing stale or con- 
ventional in his preaching. He reaches the intellect and the heart, 
and were it not for his health he would have been one of the widely 
known, popular preachers of the day." 

Dr. Gould received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity 
from Amherst College, his alma mater, in 1870. 

During the last decade he has continued to preach with frequency, 
but owing to the necessities of health, almost entirely within the near 
vicinity of his own home. The photograph accompanying this sketch 
was taken on his seventieth birthday. 



That Dr. Gould held a high place in the estimation and 



372 TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 



affection of his brother ministers and others, the following 
quotations from letters will best express. Says Dr. D. O. 
Mears, Dr. Gould's immediate successor at Piedmont 
Church, Worcester : — 

Among the colossal characters of Worcester giving wide fame to 
the city, Dr. Gould holds a unique place. To timid or wavering 
minds he was a citadel of strength and power. I cannot recall a 
great moral, civic or national question on which he did not take a 
firm stand and for which he had his profound reasons. He had the 
faith and strength of which martyrs are made. But more than this 
he inspired others to take his stand. He was as gentle as he was 
strong. The sympathy of his heart was only matched by his superb 
intellectual brilliancy. It was by this broad many-sidedness of his 
nature and character that he held such power over all who met him. 
In all his physical weariness and sufferings he was as radiant as is 
the mariner's light above the restless waves. His spiritual nature 
was dominant over all else. Under the sufferings of the passing 
years none ever thought him frail or called him "old." He ranks 
with such men as Robert Hall, Frederick W. Robinson and Bush- 
nell in the transcendent achievements wrought by a sound mind in 
an unsound body. . . 

No moral or religious gathering was ever complete without Dr. 
Gould. He was strongly conservative, yet the times never ran 
away from him. . . . 

But he is not dead. Many a time have men spoken of some text 
by his striking treatment of it. He had the genius, as did Jeffries, 
of condensing large truths into an adjective even. His analysis of 
an abstruse problem was as keen as a surgeon's knife. 

Dr. Homer T. Fuller, President of Drury College, 
for several years at the head of Worcester Polytechnic In- 
stitute, writes: — 

In the earlier history of this college Dr. Gould came here at a Com- 
mencement and gave one of his inspiring addresses, which is still 
mentioned as having made strong and deep impress on all who 
heard it. One of our trustees, himself a graduate of the college, 
said of it recently: "It was the most eloquent address I ever heard." 



TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 373 



So the seed good men sow is not lost but reproduced in the lives of 
others. 

Dr. Strong, President of Carleton College, Northfield, 
Minnesota, wrote: — 

For many years before hearing him speak, the reputation of Dr. 
Gould led me to esteem him one of the marked men in the New Eng- 
land ministry, but when through the pleasure of a personal ac- 
quaintance I felt the charm of his delightful personality, one of the 
secrets of his power and of his success became apparent. 

In a beautiful "Tribute" to Dr. Gould's memory in 
"The Congregationalist" of May 18, 1899, Rev. C. M. 
Southgate says : — 

As a preacher his name easily ranks among those of the first mag- 
nitude in his generation. His extended work at Center Church, 
Hartford, and at Piedmont and Union Churches in Worcester, with 
services in many distinguished pulpits, demonstrated that all his 
conspicuous gifts were used to enforce a living spiritual power over 
the souls of men. Those associated with him in the five years from 
the organization of Piedmont Church recall that, with all the dis- 
tractions of a new and strenuous undertaking, the church was in a 
continuous revival. He often spent as much time upon the prep- 
aration for a prayer meeting as upon a sermon. Even when ill health 
of later years shut him out from regular ministrations he was con- 
stantly sought for public occasions, especially at installing councils, 
and whoever else took part Dr. Gould's was apt to be the feature 
most anticipated and most quoted. 

While eminently a man for great occasions, nowhere was he more 
eloquent than in some impromptu talk at association or ministers' 
meeting, nowhere more delightful than in most familiar intercourse. 
The affectionateness of his nature, while extending outside, rested 
most intensely in his home, and it is to the tender solicitude which 
watched and shielded him there that we owe much of his ability to 
serve the world abroad, and doubtless some years of the life which 
at past threescore and ten seems all too short. 

His intense loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the strong 
evangelical faith which he had experienced and preached can be il- 



374 TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 



lustrated best by his own words at an installation in Worcester in 
1891 : "Unless I mistake, brethren, the alarming vice and weakness of 
many of our modern pulpits is that so largely they have given them- 
selves over to the preaching of Christian ethics instead of the gospel. 
Do I disparage Christian ethics ? Heaven forbid ! Beyond contro- 
versy they are an essential feature in all Christian character-building, 
but they are not the gospel. They are not salvation. Indeed, I do 
not hesitate to say that there is not enough Christian ethics in all 
the peerless utterances of the incarnate Son of God when on earth 
to save one human soul ! There is not Christian ethics enough packed 
between the lids of the whole New Testament to disenthrall one 
sinner from the shackles of spiritual slavery that bind him! The 
world to-day, sin-weary and crushed under life's burdens and sor- 
rows, is crying out almost in an agony of quest for the uplifted and 
sacrificial Christ of the Scriptures — the dying and redeeming Lord 
and Lamb of Calvary, who alone can take away the sin of the world." 

Miss Helen Spring of Springfield, Massachusetts, a step- 
daughter of Deacon George S. Merriam, to whom Dr. 
Gould was indebted for much of his educational course, 
sends these touching words : — 

When I was in Montclair a few days ago, one of Susie's boys, 
looking at your husband's picture, asked me about him, and I told 
him of the early days when he was like one of our own family and 
of the unchanging friendship which has lasted until now. And as I 
dwelt in thought upon his lovely character and the warm regard we 
have always felt for him, I determined to write him a long letter, to 
bring him within our family circle and to assure him of our unabated 
interest and affection. . . . 

Surely one needs not to mourn when such a pure, ripened soul 
goes home, and it is a joy to think what freedom he will feel, now 
for the first time in his life free from the wearisome trammels of his 
poor frail body. 

The following is an extract from a letter in "The Con- 
gregationalism" from Rev. Franklin M. Sprague, Tampa, 
Florida : 

Your announcement of the death of Dr. George H. Gould brought 



TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 375 



sorrow to hearts in every part of the land. For four years he was 
my pastor, and for twenty-five years he has been my brother and ad- 
viser in the ministry. Twenty-seven years ago a few brethren organ- 
ized Piedmont Church in Worcester, Massachusetts. We were small 
in number and resources. The Baptists of North Main Street kindly 
allowed us the use of their church. It fell to Mr. F. B. Knowles of 
blessed memory and myself to invite Dr. Gould to preach for us. 
He consented. Such preaching and such praying I never heard be- 
fore; no, nor since. People flocked to the services and were con- 
verted. The success of the new church was now assured. 

Piedmont has had able successors of Dr. Gould, but its present 
membership can hardly realize how much the church owes to its first 
pastor. Its high plane of spirituality, its loyalty to doctrine, its splen- 
did missionary contributions, and, above all. its home evangelization 
work, are all built upon the foundations laid, under God, by Dr. 
Gould. 

Once after Sunday-school he said to me, "You ought to preach the 
gospel." I began the study of theology under him. More than to 
any other man I owe to Dr. Gould whatever of success has attend- 
ed my ministry. I feel that the forty additions to my church last year, 
mostly on confession, were due in part to his influence. I can hardly 
bear the thought that I shall see his face no more. 

What was the secret of Dr. Gould's success? He went straight to 
God and the Bible for inspiration and power. Human sources of 
knowledge and authority, however popular, were always and wholly 
subordinate. He appreciated learning, but he worshiped only one 
hero, Jesus Christ. His spiritual vision was as quick and keen as 
the eye of an eagle. Like Webster he had settled upon a few first 
principles as universally and eternally true. To these, as to a touch- 
stone, all current questions were instantly referred. Every scrap of 
his extensive knowledge was baptized with the Holy Ghost and also 
with sanctified common sense. He had a wonderful power of im- 
agination, but it was only used to illustrate and enforce gospel les- 
sons and always buttressed by sound judgment. Dr. Gould rightly 
distrusted externalism and the spectacular in religion. Superficiality 
he abhorred. Refined and delicate in his feelings, he shrank from 
public gaze except he could thereby serve his Master. He coveted 
the love of all, but he never sacrificed the truth for the applause of 
men. 

Dr. Gould was a passionate lover of truth and a passionate hater 



3/6 TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 



of shams. He was tolerant toward men but not toward evil; he 
was quick to hear and slow to speak, but when he did speak men 
listened. "He keeps saying something all the time," said a man to 
me once as we were leaving the church. Men went away from his 
sermons to think, to pray and to repent. With Dr. Gould sin was a 
tremendous fact and its consequences unspeakably awful. Heaven 
was a glorious reality. O how we need such preachers to-day, when the 
crucial truths of the gospel are minimized and denied! It is hoped 
that Dr. Gould's sermons and addresses will soon be published. 

For many years, no layman in Piedmont Church has 
been better known than Deacon Charles T. Haynes, so 
long a teacher in Worcester. He writes of Dr. Gould: — 

It was my great pleasure to make the acquaintance of Dr. George 
H. Gould about 1872. Our intimate friendship lasted over twenty- 
five years. During the first five years of Piedmont Church he was 
the acting pastor. He did good foundation work on spiritual lines. 
His religion was a life. To me he was a remarkable preacher, 
though not always a comfortable one. He was a doctrinal preach- 
er of a most practical kind. Without personalities he often made 
his hearer feel, "Thou art the man." He was a student of the 
Bible, a growing thinker, a convincing speaker, a helpful pastor. His 
preaching left a definite and lasting impression. This feature made 
him an effective speaker on special occasions, and he honored his 
audiences by giving them something worth remembering. 

He suffered much. He comforted many broken hearts and lifted 
scores to a higher life and his light is now shining behind him. 

From the time I met him as a stranger, during many years of 
allied experiences, in the pulpit, in the home, on the street, on his 
death-bed, till I saw him lowly, lovingly laid in his silent grave, he 
was one of God's best gifts to my spiritual life. 

Only five members of the class of 1850 survive, and from 
Rev. Wm. F. Avery come these words, writtten in Conway, 
Massachusetts : — 

One specimen of his power as a public speaker, I prize. I was at 
a large gathering of the conference of churches of central Massa- 



TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 377 



chusetts. Just before it was to be dissolved the Rev. Geo. H. 
Gould was called for. He stepped to the front of the platform and 
thrilled us with an address, sound in doctrine and full of true adapta- 
tion to circumstances that moment sprung upon him. I said to 
myself, "Admirable ! You are a true Christian orator !" Such are 
glimmering impressions of one I saw enough of to greatly love. 

From his home in Providence, Rhode Island, Dr. D. W. 
Faunce, another classmate and father of President Faunce 
of Brown University, writes : — 

I am glad to know that a selection from the sermons of my es- 
teemed classmate, Dr. Gould, is soon to be published. I may be 
permitted to suggest that a sermon I heard from him, some ten years 
years ago, at Springfield, on the text "And as they went they were 
cleansed" (Luke 17:14), be included. It was a fine exhibition of 
the true preaching that sees not only a fact, but, as was Dr. Gould's 
wont, the mingled philosophy and practicality of the fact. I recalled 
the old college mood of mind he always exhibited under the teach- 
ings of Dr. H. B. Smith, who had our senior class, just before he went 
to Union Seminary. And I recalled certain walks and talks about 
Dr. Smith's way of teaching, which was wholly unlike any other 
teaching in college. Drs. Gould and Manning were wont to say, 
as did some others, that they had owed more to him than to any 
other professor at Amherst. 

I recall so clearly the tall, straight figure of Gould ; his flashing 
eye as he discussed college questions, and his happy way of retort 
when closely pressed. 

But the thing I recall with most pleasure was not so much his 
vigorous intellectual work as his consistent Christian life. He 
maintained himself as a thoroughly Christian man in those circum- 
stances of a college career where so many fail. He did not need a 
reconversion to enter the ministry. I was thinking only a few days 
ago of the old class prayer-meetings in the Senior room, when 
Gould used to take prominent part. His favorite hymn, then, was 

"Give me a calm, a thankful heart 
From every murmur free." 

He started it in nearly every meeting to the then new tune of 



378 TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 



"Naomi." They are gone, all save five of them — not dead ; but gone 
where there is the "more abundant life" in Christ. 

"God calls our loved ones, but we lose 
Not wholly what he has given; 
They live on earth, in thought and deed, 
As truly as in his heaven." 

Believe me that I am glad to write these few hurried words of a 
classmate loved as well as respected by all in the class of 1850. 

After an illness of two months, consequent upon a stroke 
of apoplexy a year and a half previous, Dr. Gould passed 
away in the afternoon of May 8, 1899. He had so far ral- 
lied from the shock in October as to take part in quite a 
number of public services. Among the last of these was 
the Jubilee service at Pilgrim Church, consequent upon 
the raising of the debt-subscription. 

His last really public effort was a little more than a 
year before his death, when he "pronounced, a most elo- 
quent and touching eulogy" upon his life-long friend, Dr. 
Cutler, pastor emeritus of Union Church, Worcester. To 
one who knew him well a slight hesitation occasionally in 
pronouncing a word was all that made apparent his re- 
cent illness. To show how much anxiety was felt for him 
at this his first effort after the stroke, we quote a most 
tender and sympathetic letter written him immediately af- 
ter by Dr. Tuttle :— 

I cannot forbear telling you how grateful, delighted and com- 
forted I am by the manner of your delivery to-day. You spoke 
with great vigor; your voice rang out like a trumpet and filled the 
church perfectly. You gave perfect evidence that your speaking 
power is unimpaired. If you had not been particular to correct several 
words, no one would have known that you did not enunciate every 



TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 379 



syllable distinctly. . . I am so pleased and grateful that you can speak 
in public as well as ever. 

In 1889 a letter was received from a stranger, dated Astor 
House, New York City, who the night before had heard 
Dr. Gould preach in Springfield. Here is a passage from 
his letter: — 

Now I want very much that you give me as full a sketch of that 
sermon as is convenient and possible within your opportunity, and it 
will be a favor that will place me under lasting obligations to you. 
I want it for my own joy and peace and spiritual exaltation; for the 
good it bestowed on me as you gave it cannot be measured. 

A stranger happened in at an installation address given 
by Dr. Gould. He was so impressed by some parts of the 
same that he had them printed upon a postal card, of which 
he circulated a large number. The first our friend knew of 
it was the receipt of one of the cards, on which the follow- 
ing words appeared : — 

Extract from an address by Rev. G. H. Gould, D. D., at a recent in- 
stallation in Worcester. 
Unless I mistake, brethren, the alarming vice and weakness of 
many of our modern pulpits is that so largely they have given them- 
selves over to the preaching of Christian ethics instead of the gospel. 
Do I disparage Christian ethics ? Heaven forbid ! Beyond controversy 
they are an essential factor in all Christian character-building; but 
they are not the gospel. They are not salvation. Indeed, I hesitate 
not to say that there is not enough Christian ethics in all the peer- 
less utterances of the incarnate Son of God when on earth to save 
one human soul ! There is not Christian ethics enough packed be- 
tween the lids of the whole New Testament to disenthrall one sinner 
from the shackles of spiritual slavery that bind him! The world 
to-day, sin-weary and crushed under life's burdens and sorrows, is 
crying out almost in an agony of quest for the uplifted and sac- 
rificial Christ of the Scriptures — the dying and redeeming Lord 
and Lamb of Calvary, who alone can take away the sin of the world. 



380 TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 



You simply then, my brother minister, preach damnation to your 
hearers when you hold up before them flawless ethics, and perfect 
ideals of human behavior, with no superadded grace and deliverance 
and joy of the gospel! . . . 

Unless I greatly misread, then, the signs of the times, there is a 
growing demand among us for a return to the simple preaching of 
the gospel. Our people, many of them at least, are tired of being 
fed on ethical husks and reformatory harangues and theological in- 
certitudes, and the indigestible stones of a Christless and crossless 
rationalism, in place of that Bread which came down from heaven, 
and for which immortal souls all around us are starving. When the 
fiery plague smote the wilderness, and the bitten Israelites lay dying 
all around him, Moses might have made a heroic effort to extermi- 
nate those venomous reptiles one by one. But the task would have 
been hopeless. He straightway, at God's command, lifted up His 
own symbol of cure — the brazen antitype and antidote, appointed of 
high heaven, that all who looked might live. It is a good thing, 
brethren, to clip the branches of evil, but it is a better thing, for 
God's prophet and God's preacher to lay the axe at the root of the 
tree. It is a good thing to ameliorate human condition along moral, 
social, political and humanitarian lines, but before this lost race of 
ours shall be "delivered from the thrall and plague and doom of sin, 
its gaze must be fixed in humble, penitent faith on the uplifted cross 
of a dying and an atoning Saviour." 

A few days before Dr. Gould's death was received a let- 
ter of condolence and sympathy from Dr. A. H. Plumb. 
He says : — 

Give him my warmest love and abounding thanks for all his pow- 
erful service in the cause of truth and righteousness. There was no 
man held in higher esteem by the remarkable band of able and 
goodly men who founded the Walnut Avenue Church : and his per- 
suasion first led me to turn from my former pastorate to this. He had 
a prevision, that I had not, and I tremble when I think how near 
I came to missing the great happiness of my long pastorate here, and 
I should have missed it but for him. 



From Dr. Gould's early associates in Hartford come 



TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 381 



words that revive cherished and sacred memories. Dr. E. 
P. Parker of the South Church writes : — 

Dear Gould, how vividly he stands out before my mind's eye, a 
most rememberable man ! Nothing vague or indefinite about him, but 
a sharp, clear silhouette, form and face. How cleverly he could take 
and give! He would chide my faults in a delightful way. He 
would thresh us in the best of humor. We all loved him very 
much indeed. He was a man of great power in preaching and some 
of his sermons should be published and I am glad you are at the 
work. Those old days when Gould and Burton were with us seem 
like days of a golden age to me. 

Dr. Joseph Twitchell of the Asylum Hill Church writes 
affectionately of the days of nearly forty years ago as fol- 
lows : — 

My personal memories of George H. Gould are, above everything 
else, affectionate and grateful. I greatly admired and honored him, 
but most of all I loved him. My acquaintance with him dates from 
the period of my settlement in Hartford. At the service of my in- 
stallation in the pastorate there in 1865 he gave me the right hand of 
fellowship. During the five succeeding years while he continued 
minister of our old First Church, he, for himself, fulfilled in all ways, 
and in amplest measure, the brotherly office so pledged. Frequently 
in those years I was in need of them. I can never forget the com- 
fort and courage I then derived from him in many an hour of de- 
pression. And the marvel of it was, that all that time, owing to the 
state of his health, his own spirits were often, perhaps as a rule, far 
from buoyant. Yet, somehow, while it might be cloudy weather with 
him, he would make me see the sun. There was a sort of uncon- 
querable brightness in him that was, at least to a remarkable extent, 
proof against the effect on his mood of the bodily ills he suffered. 
He was not made selfish by them. He would tell you how wretched- 
ly he felt, and then laugh at it. Kindness, geniality, sympathy shone 
in his face even when it bore the signature of sickness and pain. 
And the better one knew him the more was one impressed with the 
sweetness and depth of his Christian character. No wonder that I 
came soon to love him dearly, as I did, and have never ceased to do ! 



382 TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 



The occasions of our meeting in his later years were not many, 
but all the more were fondly welcomed and eagerly enjoyed. 

My fraternal sentiment toward him lost none of its strength with 
time. Whenever I clasped his hand, I seemed to receive again the 
right hand of fellowship that made us friends in the beginning. 

The Rev. John J. Putnam, Unitarian, of Worcester, has 
this to say : — 

As I knew Dr. Gould, he was a man of positive convictions, with 
the moral courage to avow them on all proper occasions. The in- 
dependence of thought which he claimed for himself, he freely ac- 
corded to other intelligent and conscientious inquirers. His greet- 
ing to me was uniformly cordial, his hand of friendliness if not of 
fellowship at once seemed to stretch graciously over disputed theo- 
logical boundaries; and while he was too sincere to minimize dif- 
ferences of opinion, he was too broad-minded and catholic in spirit 
to assume dogmatic airs. He finely exemplified the motto : "Speak- 
ing the truth in love." Not only was truth exalted in him, but 
joined with love, it became supreme. 

Dr. Almon Gunnison, now president of the St. Law- 
rence University, Canton, New York, and for several years 
the popular minister over the First Universalist Church, 
Worcester, writes to Dr. Gould a very kind and character- 
istic letter concerning his essay on "Sermon Making" : — 

I have read with interest and profit your strong essay on Sermon 
Making, and wish it could have been given before all the ministers 
instead of before the little coterie of Congregationalist clerics, who 
need not a physician. It has the sinewy strength which marks all 
your work, and the tonic flavor of a breath of the north wind on a 
summer's day. Why would it not be a good article for the Homi- 
letic Magazine? Dr. McCullagh told me on Monday night that you 
had given a great paper and I came to it on Tuesday with the ex- 
pectancy with which I read all that comes from your pen. Even 
when I am the subject of your mental excursions or dissections, I 
never fail to find you interesting, for when a man is hunting around 
to find the marrow of my bones, I like to know that he is an artist, 



TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 383 



and if I must be skinned alive I like to have it done by a gentleman. 
I hope you will not allow your pen to get rusty, or your voice to be- 
come dull through lack of use. You are "a master of assemblies" — 
and you want to keep your throne warm by keeping your place on it. 
I have not had a sight of you for some time, and am glad to have 
the evidence that your hand holds its cunning and your strong force 
knows no abatement. I hold you in affectionate esteem for your 
worth's sake and work's sake, and I might as well say so before you 
die as afterwards. 
May the Lord bless you and keep you ! 

In introducing Dr. Plumb of Boston, Dr Scott said : 
"Anticipating this hour, our beloved brother said: 'Send 
for Dr. Plumb. He knows more about me than any one 
else.' " Dr. Plumb said in part : — 

A Christian and especially a Christian minister, whenever he de- 
parts from a place, leaves always there the result of his influence, for 
he has been a well-spring of light. A Christian is always doing good. 
Wherever a Christian minister has been, there is an imperceptible 
diffusion of the truth through all society. 

One element in Dr. Gould that we all think of has already been 
alluded to. He was faithful to his trust. Our brother was ever en- 
gaged in the manifestation of truth and we love to think of him as 
meeting in the other world with those who have been led by his 
faithfulness. 

His earnestness is another point of which I wish to speak. Dr. 
Gould was always under the consuming passion of a devoted heart. 
How sweet was his sympathy with the spirit of Christ! As a min- 
ister I wish to say something of his demeanor. He never forgot he 
was an ambassador of Christ. He was in the ministry for souls and 
God gave them to him. He could not do what some pastors do, but 
as he had opportunity. 

Dr. Plumb read the favorite hymn of Dr. Gould, begin- 
ning, "When I survey the wondrous cross/' and said that 
the last verse was the index of his whole ministry, and con- 



384 TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 



eluded with these words : "So we look upon his form at' 
rest, and say, Farewell, farewell for a season." 
Rev. Dr. Tuttle said in part : 

To attempt to say what Dr. Gould has been to the churches and 
ministers of Worcester, would be to attempt to do more than any 
minister is able. There are many things which Dr. Gould did for 
Worcester. Some who knew him may think that his ill-health pre- 
vented him from being as useful as he wished. I am sure that Dr. 
Gould felt that himself. It seems to me that it is harder to bear 
God's will than to do it. But with all his hard experiences he has 
gone forth purified and in these days of changing thought he has 
given the example of being so entrenched in the truth that he thought 
of no change save to go deeper into the meaning of divine truths. 

His heart was, perhaps, most with this church, but he loved all 
churches. He was one of the strongest-spirited men in the ministry 
of God that I have known. 

Rev. Amos H. Coolidge, of Worcester (Class of 1856), 
sends this tribute to his long-time friend : — 

"The activities of Dr. Gould have been from the first much cir- 
cumscribed by physical limitations and depressions. He at different 
times received urgent and flattering invitations to the pastorate of 
important churches in Philadelphia, Boston and other cities, which 
he declined on account of his health. His only settlement as in- 
stalled pastor was in Hartford. He was acting pastor of Piedmont 
Church in the first five years of its existence, and left upon it tho 
permanent influence of his evangelical, devout and earnest spiritu- 
ality. Although his ministerial aspirations were disappointed, he 
held, notwithstanding his limitations, a place of honor and influence 
alike among ministers and churches. In his later years of com- 
parative retirement he was especially helpful to the small and more 
dependent churches, to which he contributed liberally, both pecu- 
niarily and by personal service. In conversation and occasional ad- 
dresses he was witty, sprightly and impressive. Warm-hearted, 
sympathetic and faithful, he was a man greatly beloved. His funeral 
in Piedmont Church was largely attended by sincere mourners. Dr. 
Gould regarded the Christian ministry as a preeminently grand and 



TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 385 

responsible profession. His standard of preaching was high. In 
his estimation the pulpit was the throne of ministerial power. He 
was fearless and outspoken, and expressed his convictions and judg- 
ments in terms and tones clear, incisive, forceful, ringing. In his 
thinking and preaching Mr. Gould was intelligently and earnestly 
evangelical. He cared little for the subtleties or speculations of the- 
ological polemics, but to the end he firmly clung to the great central, 
vital, saving truths of the gospel. The last time I sat by his bed, 
not long before his death, he said, 'I have been reconstructing my 
theology. I do n't know whether it is old or new. It is mostly con- 
densed into two hymns: 

When I survey the wondrous cross 
On which the Prince of glory died, 

My richest gain I count but loss, 
And pour contempt on all my pride; 

and that other beautiful hymn : 

There is a fountain filled with blood, 

Drawn from Immanuel's veins, 
And sinners plunged beneath that flood 

Lose all their guilty stains.' " 

Resolutions in memory of the Rev. George H. Gould, 
D. D., of the class of 1850, were adopted May 26, 1899, by 
the Amherst Alumni Association, of which he was a mem- 
ber, as follows : — 

Whereas our heavenly Father, in his divine wisdom, has removed 
from us, by the death of Rev. George H. Gould of the Class of 
1850, one of the most honored, beloved and loyal of the sons of Am- 
herst, we, in behalf of the Amherst Alumni Association of Central 
Massachusetts, desiring to express our appreciation of his character 
and work, and our sense of loss in his death, do hereby adopt the 
following resolution, — 

First: That in the death of Dr. Gould, Amherst College has lost 
an alumnus who in breadth of scholarship, nobility of character and 
loyal interest in the college has stood among the first of her grad- 
uates. His diploma was won at Amherst only after a long and 



386 TRIBUTES TO DOCTOR GOULD 



~N bitter struggle with poverty. In the face of difficulties which would 
have deterred an ordinary man, he fought his way step by step until, 
after four years of struggle, he was graduated with honor in the 
class of 1850. He has represented the great work which Amherst 
has done for the education of poor boys, out of whom she has made 
some of the most cultured and useful men of our generation. He 
has stood for Amherst ideas and Amherst character. His entire 
career has been that of one who, in the halls of his Alma Mater, has 
learned how to make the most of himself for man and God. The broad, 
inspiring panorama of beauty spreading away from the old college in 
her "many windowed hills" has awakened many Amherst men to 
great visions of letters, life and duty; but never any among them 
more than Dr. Gould. He was a man of great visions, of splendid 
faith, of unswerving loyalty, of profound conviction, of wide culture. 
He represented the best of Amherst's best. Standing for the old, 
he was always interested and sympathetic with the newer Am- 
herst. The reputation of the college was very dear to him. Her 
high ideals, which had so aroused and inspired him, he was eager 
to see preserved and followed in the development of her later life. 
He was one of the men who has brought imperishable honor to Am- 
herst. His death is both a serious loss to her and to our Association 
from which the older men are fast falling by the way. To his high 
character and to our regard and love for him as a son of Amherst, 
we desire to bear this imperfect but grateful testimony. 

Second: Be it resolved: that a copy of this resolution be in- 
scribed upon the records of our Association, and also sent to Mrs. 
Gould, and to Dr. Hitchcock for preservation among the memorabilia 
of the Alumni, and published in the Amherst Student and the local 
press. 



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